Duncan, Robert; Boughn, Michael; Coleman, Victor

The H.D. Book (The Collected Writings of Robert Duncan, Vol. 1)

ISBN: 9780520260757
Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2011. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. “There with his honey-seeking lips / The bee clings close and warmly sips, / And seeks with honey-thighs to sway / And drink the very flower away. / (Ah, stern the petals drawing back; / Ah, rare, ah virginal her breath!) / Crimson, with honey-seeking lips / The sun lies hot across his back, / The gold is flecked across his wings…” (excerpt, Book 2. Night and Days, pg 407). Robert Duncan (1919-1988), a central figure of the San Francisco Renaissance & of the Black Mountain poets, was a foundational American poet whose work seamlessly fused the mythic, the historical, the erotic, and the self. Raised by adoptive parents devoted to Theosophy and the occult, Duncan developed an enduring fascination with mystical traditions that permeated his work. Originally conceived in 1959 as an homage to modernist poet Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961), this monumental undertaking known as “The H.D. Book,” expanded into a meditation on literary modernism, encompassing Ezra Pound (1885-1972), D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) & the overlooked contributions of women to the movement. As the sensual passage above demonstrates, Duncan's poetry transforms the physical world into a theater of mythic & spiritual revelation. His friendship with Charles Olson (1910-1970), whose theories of projective verse revolutionized American poetics, further informed Duncan's conception of poetry as an open field of discovery. Edited by Michael Boughn (b. 1946) & Victor Coleman (b. 1944), this first volume of The Collected Writings of Robert Duncan gathers a work previously scattered across time, presenting Duncan's decades-long literary undertaking in its entirety. This volume is especially unique in that it contains two dust jackets: one for what was ostensibly the Advance Review Copy of the work, as well as the dust jacket for the completed, published version. At any rate, an essential contribution to Duncan's oeuvre. From the collection of Albert Glover (1942-2026), the esteemed American poet, editor, bibliographer, publisher & academician who was the foremost remaining authority on Charles Olson (1910-1970). Glover was a student of & anointed by the Maximus Master himself at SUNY Buffalo during the 1960s, & had ever since served outstandingly to bear the Olsonian Torch. We are deeply saddened by the recent passing of our friend & mentor. Hardcover in unclipped dust jacket[s]: First Edition, though not explicated as such on copyright page; First Printing, as indicted by number sequence, thereon. In exceptionally strong Fine condition with slightest shelf-wear to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & spine-edge; minute-to-moderate age toning throughout; otherwise, generally clean with interior unmarked. Both dust jackets in strong Near Fine condition, with only minute shelf-wear to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers & spine-edge; minute-to-moderate age-toning, staining present at select locales of same; otherwise, generally clean. Fine / Near Fine. [Item #9503]

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