Warsh, Lewis

Moving Through Air

New York, NY, USA: Angel Hair Books, 1968. Limited First Edition. Stapled Wrappers. "A stone falls | and the expedient path | is blocked. We hide | in the bushes | because we are certain of being attacked | from behind, from the boat | We are lifting our bows into the air | watching the arrows splash | taking aim, repeating fire." (opening stanza, title poem, unpaginated). Moving Through Air is American poet, visual artist, professor, prose writer, editor & publisher Lewis Warsh's (1944-2020) third book of poetry & the first published by his imprint, Angel Hair Books, one of the defining small presses of the second-generation New York School. The title Moving Through Air fits the idea of drift and motion without a fixed point, as the poems are often scattered and many-voiced. Warsh and his then-wife, the great Anne Waldman (b. 1945) started the imprint in New York City in spring 1966. They took the name from a line in a Jonathan Cott poem, Angel Hair sleeps with a boy in his head which also became the title of the 2001 anthology. They first ran it out of their apartment on St. Marks Place, where they mixed with writers, artists, and musicians Ted Berrigan, Bernadette Mayer, Ron Padgett, Bill Berkson, Joe Brainard and George Schneeman. The press grew out of the Mimeograph Revolution and their early work was made with very little money. Each title had its own visual identity because the editors worked closely with visual artists on the covers. Their magazine Angel Hair Press (see Item No.s 8445, 8446, 8554 for examples) ended when Waldman and Warsh separated in 1969, but both kept publishing under the Angel Hair Books imprint until 1978. 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 standout. Chapbook in Stapled Wrappers: Limited First Edition per endpage colophon: "Printed in a first edition of | 500 copies by the Chapel | Press, Williamstown, | Massachusetts for Angel Hair. A most collectible entry from the Mimeograph Revolution in one of its rarest contemporary forms, with relevant association & very distinguished provenance. In relatively fine condition with mild-to-moderate age-toning, rubbing & scratching to front, back covers & spine; mild bumping/wear to corners of same; moderate spot-staining/rubbing mostly to fine edges & blank margins of back cover; mild-to-moderate age-toning & rubbing to text block. Interior fine with mild-to-moderate age-toning mostly to blank margins & fine edges of page leaves; moderate rusting of staples with minimal interior bleeding. Fine. [Item #9472]

Price: $40.00 save 10% $36.00