Whalen, Philip

Memoirs of an Interglacial Age

San Francisco, CA: The Auerhahn Press, 1960. First Edition. Softcover. "This poetry is a picture or a graph of a mind moving, which is a world body being here and now which is history...and you." (excerpt, Since You Ask Me, pg. 49). Memoirs of an Interglacial Age is American poet, Zen Buddhist & key San Francisco Renaissance/Beat Generation figure Philip Whalen's (1923-2002) second book, published in 1960 by Dave Haselwood's Auerhahn Press in San Francisco, the same small letterpress that produced William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) and Brion Gysin's (1916-1986) The Exterminator (See Item No. 1425) that year. Memoirs of an Interglacial Age is not a memoir in the prose sense; the title is Whalen's wry, geological joke. The "interglacial age" frames the poems as fragments recorded between periods of ice, a human interval that's warm, temporary, and a little absurd. The collection gathers shorter poems and prose-poems written across his late-1950s Beat Generation years. Whalen was a central Beat Generation figure, having been a reader at the legendary 1955 Six Gallery event where Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997) first performed Howl (See Item No. 8589) and was a close friend of Gary Snyder (b. 1930). Memoirs of an Interglacial Age is one of the clearest early demonstrations of the West Coast Beat sensibility distinct from the New York wing, it is more contemplative, more grounded in Buddhist practice (Whalen eventually became a Buddhist monk) and the natural world, funnier and less confessional. Whalen uses his signature style, writing poetry as "a picture or graph of a mind moving." Rather than building poems around a central metaphor or a story, he lets the poem follow the actual drift of consciousness. The voice is deliberately hip, jazzy, irreverent, and willing to ramble. He treated open, associative composition as a kind of freedom that was simultaneously formal, sexual, intellectual, and moral. 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 WSB, J.G. Ballard (1930-2009) et al., some of which have become the scarcest, all-but-unobtainable Beat-&-Beyond collectibles (see for example our Item No.s 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 gems of Unicorn & Public House, including this landmark. Softcover Original: First Edition, first printing though neither explicated as such at copyright page. A most collectible Whalen/SFR/Beat Generation cornerstone in its rarest contemporary form with extremely relevant association & very distinguished provenance. In relatively fine condition with moderate age-toning & rubbing mostly to fine edges of front, back covers & spine; mild creasing/bumping of corners to same; a few occasions of mild spot-staining to front cover; moderate spot-staining and discoloration due to age-toning to back cover; mild-to-moderate age-toning & rubbing to text block. Interior fine with mild age-toning mostly to blank margins & fine edges of page leaves; mild creasing/bumping of corners to some of same. Fine. [Item #9176]

Price: $150.00 save 10% $135.00