Snyder, Gary

Songs for Gaia

ISBN: 0914742450
Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1979. Michael Corr. Second Printing. Stapled Wrappers. "Twenty thousand square hill miles of manzanita. | some beautiful tiny manzanita. | I saw a single, perfect, lovely, | little manzanita. | ah." (final stanza, gaia, unpaginated). Songs for Gaia is a short poem sequence by Beat Generation-&-Beyond eco-poet Gary Snyder (b. 1930), illustrated with woodblock prints by Michael Corr (b. 1940) and produced as a benefit for the Kah Tai Alliance (a local environmental group fighting to preserve a lagoon). Songs for Gaia is a song for the living Earth, sung as a kind of praise or devotional offering. There is no linear narrative; it's a garland of short lyric fragments, mostly imagistic snapshots of the natural world observed closely. It is a compact statement of Snyder's mature ecological poetics, and is an early literary uptake of Gaia theory (the idea that the whole planet functions as a single self-regulating living organism), showing how quickly he translated a scientific idea into devotional verse. It bridges his wilder mythic project Myths & Texts and the domestic, settled voice of Axe Handles, and demonstrates his signature method: reverence expressed through precise, unsentimental natural observation rather than through statement. Corr & Snyder shared the same milieu: Pacific Northwest roots, deep immersion in Japanese Zen, printmaking & an ecological sensibility, which made Corr a natural fit to illustrate Snyder. For more from Snyder, please see Item No.s 7325, 7478 & 8194 et al. 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 (1914-1997), 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 magnificent matter. Chapbook in Stapled Wrappers: First Edition, second printing per endpage colophon, "This second printing is a photo-offset reproduction of the letterpress original." A rich & rewarding Beat Generation/San Francisco Renaissance collectible collaboration in one of its rarest contemporary forms with highly relevant association & very distinguished provenance. In relatively very fine condition with very mild bumping to top corners of front & back covers; mild rusting of staples; extremely mild age-toning & spot-staining to text block. Interior very fine with mild age-toning mostly to blank margins & fine edges of pages leaves; very mild occasions of spot-staining along bottom fine edge of final few pages. Very Fine. [Item #9230]

Price: $40.00 save 10% $36.00