Finley, Karen

Shock Treatment with: Ephemera

ISBN: 9780872862524
San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books, 1990. First Edition. Softcover. “She dreams. She dreams of strangling baby birds. Bluebirds, wrens and robins. And with her thumbs she pushes back on their small feathered necks, pushes back against their beaks till they snap like breaking twigs. / She dreams. She dreams of being locked in a cage and singing loudly and off-key with her loved ones standing behind her, whispering very loudly, “she has an ugly voice, doesn't she? She has an ugly voice.” Oh, leave it to the loved ones always to interfere with our dreams. / She dreams. She dreams of falling out of a fifth story window. But she catches her fall by holding onto the window ledge. It’s January and the ledge is made of stone. The ledge is icy, frozen and cold. The stone and the ice cut through her flesh, cut through her fingers, her bones. It doesn’t matter, though, for she has ugly fingers. She sees the blood gush out of her limbs the more she holds onto the ledge. She can hear her own death. As she hands out the window her husband walks below, but her husband hadn't memorized her shadow and she didn’t know how to wear perfume. She just wasn’t that kind of girl. So she cried out for help. Help. HELP. Helllp. HEEELLP! But the wind was in a mean mood and took her cries half way ‘round the world into a child's crib so its mother could hear her own child’s cries…”—Karen Finley, “Strangling Baby Birds,” pg. 2. Karen Finley (b .1956) is an American performance artist, musician, poet, and educator, who is perhaps best-known for the case 1998 Supreme Court case National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley which was lost by Finley and the other artists involved. Offered today is the 1990 seminal work, Shock Treatment. Capturing the drama and fragility of the AIDS era, Karen Finley masterfully weaves exquisite imagery and delightfully avant-garde lyricism to explore dark and profound themes in the poems that compriseShock Treatment. “The Black Sheep,” “We Keep Our Victims Ready,” “I Was Never Expected to Be Talented,”–these are some of the seminal works which excoriated homophobia and misogyny at a time when artists and writers were under attack for challenging the status quo. She traces her journey from art school to burlesque gigs to the San Francisco North Beach literary scene. From the collection of Brian Jacobs (b. 1969) who, in 1994, had just begun his attendance at the Kerouac School/Naropa University (then Naropa Institute), & was beginning his studies with Ginsberg, Anne Waldman (the very co-founders of the School) et al. Later during his sojourn at Naropa of 1994-1996, Jacobs would become Ginsberg's official assistant. Since those heady days of Beat Anointment in the 1990s, Jacobs has gone on to become a most-distinguished author, publisher & academician, a True Beat Progeny who now resides here in Ann Arbor & is our good friend & colleague. We have found and retained, between pages 18 & 19, a small yellow book mark/advertisement for a reading dated November 7, 1990 of Finely reading from Shock Treatment at City Lights Books. Softcover original. Book in very fine condition with only minor wear to fine edges, mild smudging/scratching to front and back covers, and light discoloration due to age-toning. Very Fine. [Item #8766]

Price: $40.00