San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books, 1971; 1981. First Edition, Fourth Printing; First Edition Thus. Softcovers. "For a time I held a unique position. Among the hundreds of isolated creatures who haunted the streets of lower downtown Denver, there was not one so young as myself. Amid these dreary men who had committed themselves, each for his own good reason, to the task of finishing their days as pennyless drunkards..... More
[Item #4316]
Los Angeles, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1971. Limited First Edition. Hardcover. Signed by Tom Clark, & with signed ephemera. 'Nothing inside/ a space/ the surface of which/ is filled/ with tiny messages" ("TV," pg. 15) A collection with the title poem & many other short works along with the final, longer "A Sailor's Life," by Tom Clark (1941-2018). Clark, the prodigious & prolific poet, editor & biographer, has left us..... More
[Item #3635]
Toronto, Ontario, Canada: The Coach House Press, 1971. First Edition Thus. Softcover. "In a strange game I saw myself/ as you knew me" (from "Neil Young," pg. 6) A volume with the title & four other groups of poems by Tom Clark (1941-2018), the prodigious poet, editor & biographer who first burned brightly, struggled with obscurity while maintaining his output, & epitomizes our category of "The Prolific & Underappreciated." Among..... More
[Item #3627]
London, England: Ferry Press, 1966. Limited First Trade Edition. Stapled Wrappers. "The pain of being a candy bar/ in a pub- oh madness it's/ beautiful not to be included,/ but it's lonely too and makes you remember/ the social instincts one can't ever foil!/ They're so great! Feeling like a man- what's better than that?" ("Explanatory Ways," first poem in this collection in its entirety) The first publication by Tom..... More
[Item #3520]
New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1969. First Edition. Hardcover. "At twenty-seven, Tom Clark has been Poetry Editor of the Paris Review for five years, has received two Hopwood awards, and one of Poetry's annual awards. His readings draw huge, enthusiastic audiences that would be the envy of many an Establishment poet twice his age. The reasons for such attention are clearly in evidence in Stones, the first collection of..... More
[Item #3589]
Berkeley, CA: Blue Wind Press, 1979. First Trade Hardcover Edition. Hardcover. "This fast-paced cinematic novel depicts a hip young American professor/poet's brief but deeply disturbing affair with an enigmatic Englishwoman named Sylvia. Set against the backdrop of the psychedelic 60s, the novel opens on the London literary scene where Bob and Sylvia become entangled. The action shifts to the art world and backwaters of the jet-set scene on the French..... More
[Item #3724]
Bolinas, CA: Angel Hair Books, 1969. Limited First Edition. Sewn Wrappers. Signed by Tom Clark (twice) & Lewis Warsh. A large chapbook of poems by Tom Clark (1941-2018), the great poet, editor & biographer; in collaboration with Lewis Warsh, poet-polymath who at the time was married to NYC Beat-&-Beyond icon Anne Waldman. The book as a whole is dedicated to the writer Edwin Denby (1903-1983), & each poem is dedicated..... More
[Item #3561]
Coventry, England: Beat Scene Press, 2018. Limited First Edition. Stapled Wrappers. "Putting Peter Coyote's life into a few words would be impossible. He is an actor and writer. You may know his distinctive voice from so many documentaries and movies. He was a Digger and remembers those turbulent times well." (front flap) An essay by Peter Coyote, the acclaimed actor, screenwriter, director & author, about his experiences as a founding..... More
[Item #3452]
Frankfurt, Germany: Zweitausendeins, 1981. First Edition. Hardcover in Slipcase. One of the elusive "German Facsimile Sketchbooks" from the great, subversive Underground Comix genius R. Crumb--found here in virtually unread condition. Hardcover bound in black cloth with gilt stamping on spine with ribbon marker bound in. Complete with German translation Booklet, and housed in original cardboard slipcase with printed label affixed to the spine. From the outset this work proves itself..... More
[Item #4227]
Madison, WI: RPM Print Shop, 1972. First Printing. Stapled Wrappers. "...many a truth comes out over the collating table, said Hamlet sucking a beer. said levy: "When I'm dead, you ought to give more attention to live poets." levy started poetry in Cleveland, helped a lot of poets, wrote "ukanhavyrfuckincitibak," edited The Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle...was invited in 1968 by Quixote to spend some time in Madison. He came..... More
[Item #3604]
New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1991. First Softcover Edition. Softcover. "Jim Morrison, the Lizard King, was a Renaissance statue come to life with the body of an adolescent god mailed in leather. He embodied the hallucinated, under-the-volcano neon black vision of L.A. like no one else. Like a prophet from the wilderness made king, he was ultimately trapped and never made it back from the other side." (back cover)..... More
[Item #3529]
New York, NY: Poets Press, Inc., 1968. Limited First Edition. Stapled Wrappers. Signed by Diane di Prima. A 1968-vintage chapbook of poems by Diane di Prima (1934-2020), among the few-&-far-between female poets & publishers of the primary Beat Generation who was actually acknowledged as such from the beginning of her long & illustrious career. An exquisite production with each (unpaginated) page a facsimile of di Prima's own cursive handwriting &..... More
[Item #4641]
Los Angeles, CA: Black Sparrow Press, 1969. First Limited Softcover Edition. Softcover. "The struggle of clothes up the wash-board./ The slow web of no money but sunlight./ Sunlight. Hard at the sungate, in it, o-/ ver her hands// he stands/ like the light/ that moves/ her// yet he stands/ behind her/ slightly to the left/ forever" ("Sungate," first three stanzas, pg. 29) A collection of poems by Clayton Eshleman (1935-2021)..... More
[Item #4644]
New York, NY: Random House, 1969. First Edition. Hardcover. "Richard Farina's tragically short odyssey began in Brooklyn in 1937. Its places included Cornell University, Paris, Northern Ireland, Havana--once while Castro's army was entering the city--cities and countries across America and Europe. Its roles included poet, composer, IRA Revolutionary, singer, dulcimer-player, novelist--always developing and refining his own unique insights into our world and himself. Son of an Irish mother and a...... More
[Item #4475]
New York, NY: Equinox Books/ Avon Books; Ace Books, 1975 (1964); 1965; 1977. First Edition Thus; First Editions. Softcovers. Three classic works of science fiction by Philip Jose Farmer (1918-2009), the pioneering, prolific & highly influential American author: (1) Inside Outside, originally published in 1964, reissued in this first edition thus by Avon books' Equinox imprint as No. 7 of its "SF Rediscovery Series, dedicated to making important and influential..... More
[Item #3461]
New York, NY: Grove Press, Inc., 1963. First Edition Thus. Hardcover. "Jean Genet needs no introduction to American readers. During the past decade his plays- The Maids, Deathwatch, The Balcony, The Blacks, and his soon-to-be performed The Screens- have acquired the status of modern classics and established their author in the forefront of contemporary dramatists. (Genet) first burst upon the literary scene with this novel, Our Lady of the Flowers..... More
[Item #4498]
New York, NY: Grove Press, 1964. First American Edition, First Printing. Hardcover. First U.S. edition of Jean Genet's journal of his life among street outcasts in Barcelona after deserting the Foreign Legion. A classic work first published in France in 1949 by a legendary writer whose life paralleled the Beats & later intersected with them, especially when he covered the infamous 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago alongside William S. Burroughs..... More
[Item #4412]
San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books, 1970. First Edition. Stapled Wrappers. The text of a speech delivered by French avant-garde playwright, novelist & activist Jean Genet (1910-1986) on May Day (May 1), 1970, at Yale University, on behalf of the Black Panther Party & its then-jailed founder Bobby Seale. Genet had participated with William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg & others in the protests at Chicago during the Democratic National Convention..... More
[Item #4398]
New York, NY: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1964. First American Edition. Hardcover. "Jocelin's Folly they called it; the great spire that the Dean drove upwards until the stone pillars that held it shrieked and the earth beneath it crawled and crept. For the spire had no foundations; and a spire, if it is to stand, must go down as far as it goes up. But an angel stood behind..... More
[Item #4483]
San Francisco, CA: San Francisco Public Library, 2001. First Printing. Single Sheet. Signed by Gerald Nicosia. On December 5, 2001, a memorial event for Ken Kesey, who had died on November 10, was held at the San Francisco Public Library's Koret Auditorium, hosted by Gerald Nicosia, the acclaimed critical biographer of Jack Kerouac; & Neeli Cherkovski, among the key figures of the Baby Beat Generation/ Second San Francisco Renaissance. The..... More
[Item #3490]
New York, NY: New Directions Books, 1998. First Softcover Edition. Softcover. A small volume of selected love poems by James Laughlin (1914-1997), the great editor & publisher in the Pantheon of literature with such giants as Barney Rosset & Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Laughlin was a very gifted & impassioned poet, as proven in these selections. First softcover edition, preceded the previous year (1997) by a hardcover edition, published in Laughlin's memory..... More
[Item #3613]
New York, NY: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1968. First American Edition. Hardcover. "The scene is Bonn, a small provincial town elevated by the cold war to the artificial status of a capital city. The protagonists are British diplomats, their wives, and aspiring German politicians. The time is the recent future. While the Foreign Office is locked in a last desperate battle to enter the Common Market, while the new Germany is being..... More
[Item #3689]
New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1966. First Edition. Hardcover. "We believe The Fixer to be a great novel. Bernard Malamud has put a lifetime of working at his craft into this extraordinary book. What makes the difference here is that the author's consummate skill has been applied to a great theme- injustice- and embodied in a great story. The Fixer is the story of a little man, a...... More
[Item #4583]
New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1961. First Edition. Hardcover. "This is the story of S. Levin, thirty, a bearded man with a burdensome past, who comes from New York to a small town in the Pacific Northwest, to live a new life." (front flap) The third novel by Bernard Malamud (1914-1986), the great Jewish-American author in the acclaimed twentieth-century canon along with his contemporaries including Saul Bellow &..... More
[Item #4510]
Lincoln, MA: The Penmaen Press, 1975. Limited First Edition. Hardcover. Signed by Gerard Malanga. "the life of the one real dream/ is made of arrivals and departures/ is made of something not there/ held together by nothing/ the dream we will never remember returns" ("Dream Without Sequence," pg. 9) A collection of 24 poems on 24 pages by Gerard Malanga, the acclaimed poet, photographer & key member of Andy Warhol's..... More
[Item #3682]