Snyder, Gary

The Back Country

London, England, UK: Fulcrum Press, 1967. First Softcover Edition. Softcover. “America five hundred years ago was clouds of birds, miles of bison, endless forests and grass and clear water. Today it is the tired ground of the world’s’ dominant culture. Only Americans and a few western Europeans have lived with industry and the modern mass so long – the Africans and Chinese are fascinated children. There is not much wilderness left to destroy, and the nature in the mind is being logged and burned off. Industrial-urban society is not ‘evil’ but there is no progress either. As poet I hold the most archaic values on earth. They go back to the Neolithic: the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. A gas turbine or an electric motor is a finely-crafted flint knife in the hand. It is useful and full of wonder, but it is not our whole life. I try to hold both history and the wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times. The soil and human sensibilities may erode away forever, even without a great war.” (Gary Snyder, back cover) An early work by Gary Snyder (b. 1930), the canonical Beat Generation/ San Francisco Renaissance-&-Beyond American poet & environmentalist who is still with us & active as of this writing at age 95, & whose works have been enshrined in the Library of America series. The Back Country opens with “A Berry Feast,” which Snyder read at the Six Gallery Reading where Allen Ginsberg first read “Howl.” Trade-format softcover, First Softcover Edition with all points in McNeil, A16(c), p. 34. From the collection of Richard Cupidi (b. 1945), our esteemed friend in the UK who managed the fabled Unicorn Bookshop in Brighton, England with Bill Butler (1934-1977, the famed American-expatriate bookseller & publisher). From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, Unicorn proffered & published some of the scarcest, all-but-unobtainable Beat-&-Beyond collectibles (see for example item No. 8217). After prevailing against censorious harassment efforts, Unicorn closed & Butler died in short order. Cupidi went on to found the Public House Bookshop in Brighton, which had a long & successful run but is also now closed, & he still resides there. We have been honored to obtain what Cupidi has termed "The Last Hurrah," all the remaining treasures of Unicorn & Public House, some of which have become the stuff of myth. Beginning with today's assortment of New Arrivals exclusively dedicated to this collection, Third Mind Books will reverently curate & present incrementally the Butler-Cupidi-Unicorn-Public House Legacy that is in our custodial hands- until it passes to yours. In Relatively-Fine condition with some slight rubbing and scratching to front & back covers; mild creasing & bumping to edges & corners of same; remnants of a price sticker on back cover; minor staining to textblock. Interior fine with minor smudging on some leaves; some minor paper transfer from inside front cover to first endpaper leaf. Fine. [Item #8194]

Price: $50.00