di Prima, Diane

The New Handbook of Heaven

San Francisco, CA: Auerhahn Press, 1963. Limited First Trade Edition. “I have thrown something else away (she sd) / that’s how it shd be / my nails are cracking–probably malnutrition– / I live as I live / last night I dreamed I (naked) rode a horse / in the house. We went like the wind. / tomorrow you fly back to yr town / yr town: / afterall the most we / have: the polis / no other country.”--Diane di Prima, “The Esplanade.” Diane di Prima (1934-2020) was a Beat poet, artist, prose writer, and teacher. A New York woman, born and raised, di Prima immersed herself in the burgeoning Beat movement as it was developing in Greenwich Village, where she befriended Allen Ginsberg (1924-1997), Frank O’Hara (1926-1966), Jack Kerouac (1922-1969), Amiri Baraka (1934-2014) a/k/a Leroi Jones (with whom she co-edited the literary magazine The Floating Bear from 1961 to 1969), and Audre Lorde (1934-1992). Di Prima published more than 40 books. Her poetry collections included This Kind of Bird Flies Backward (1958), the long poem Loba (1978, expanded 1998), and Pieces of a Song: Selected Poems (2001). She is also the author of the short story collectionDinners and Nightmares (1960, see also item # 8402), the semi-autobiographical Memoirs of a Beatnik (1968), and the memoir Recollections of My Life as a Woman: The New York Years (2001). Offered today is the 1963 collection of poetry, The New Handbook of Heaven. An interesting piece for its position within di Prima’s oeuvre, The New Handbook of Heaven stands as an early-middle period piece between her co-editorship of The Floating Bear--where Jones’ politics influences and shapes her own, within the sort of urban milieu of New York– and her later “bolinas” period poetic development. The New Handbook of Heaven is iconic di Prima; a mix of stream-of-consciousness with attention to form, joins the political with the spiritual, and the result is a poetics that is as compelling as it is experimental and revolutionary. From the collection of Richard Cupidi (b. 1945), our esteemed mate in the UK who managed the fabled Unicorn Bookshop in Brighton, England for founder Bill Butler (1934-1977, the famed American-expatriate bookseller & publisher). From the late 1960s through the early 1970s, Unicorn proffered & published many outstanding productions by William S. Burroughs, J.G. Ballard et al., some of which have become the scarcest, all-but-unobtainable Beat-&-Beyond collectibles (see for example our item nos. 8217-8366). 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. Softcover. Limited first trade edition “in an edition of 1030 copies of which 30 are printed on arches, handbound by the Schuberth bookbindery, & signed by the author” as stated at colophon. In near fine condition with moderate wear to fine edges, mild discoloration due to age-toning to front, back, and spine; interior very fine with little to no perceptible wear. Near Fine. [Item #8400]

Price: $100.00