ALEXANDER LITERARY FIRSTS & POETRY RARE BOOKS CATALOGUE TWENTY-SIX ALEXANDER RARE BOOKS – LITERARY FIRSTS & POETRY Mark Alexander 234 Camp Street Barre, VT 05641 (802) 476-0838 Catalogue Twenty–Six: All items are US or UK Hardcover First Editions & First Printings unless otherwise stated. All items guaranteed & are refundable for any reason within 30 days. Subject to prior sale. VT residents please add 6% sales tax. Checks, Money Orders, & Paypal (most credit cards) accepted. Net 30 days. Libraries & institutions billed according to need. Reciprocal terms offered to the trade. SHIPPING IS FREE IN THE US (generally Priority Mail) & CANADA, elsewhere $13 per shipment. Visit AlexanderRareBooks.com for cover scans and photos of most catalogued items. I encourage you to visit my website for the latest acquisitions. The best items usually appear on my website, then appear in my catalogues, before appearing elsewhere online. I am always interested in acquiring first editions, single copies or collections, and particularly modernist & contemporary poetry. Thank you in advance for perusing this catalogue. Catalogue – 26 (Mostly Poetry, a smattering of Fiction, some Fine Press, with Broadsides, Posters, a Silkscreen, Little Mags and Mimeograph Material) 1) Acker, Kathy. THE ADULT LIFE OF TOULOUSE LAUTREC. San Francisco: self- published, 1975. First edition. Stapled sheets folded. A set (missing one section and envelope) of the author's third novel originally published in six sections and mailed separately in six envelopes (the second section and envelope is missing) imprinted with “The Black Tarantula” return address; includes: pp.4 - 41; 92 - 132; 134 - 172; 174 - 213; 216 – 260. Near fine in the original envelopes (five, some roughly opened at the top). (10602) $1,000.00 2) Acker, Kathy. I DREAMT I WAS A NYMPHOMANIAC. San Francisco: self-published, 1974. First edition. Stapled sheets folded. A complete set of the author's second novel published in six sections and mailed separately: pp. 1-34; 35-71; 72 - 106; 107 - 139; 142-165 & 166 -192. Near fine in five of the original envelopes (one envelope missing) imprinted with “The Black Tarantula” return address. Envelopes wrinkled, but otherwise near fine. (10600) $1,250.00 Her friend Luc Sante recently writing about Acker: "She first distributed her work on the mail-art circuit, pamphlets that she typed, Xeroxed, and sent out serially to a hundred people or so". One of the key figures of the art punk 70's, much of her writing involves appropriation of work ranging from the classics to porn, and inserting herself and her life into the collage. Always a cult figure, this early self-published material is particularly scarce, and virtually impossible to find complete, many already finding their way to institutions. Modern rarities all addressed to the same recipient. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) Auden, W. H. EPISTLE TO A GODSON: and Other Poems. Ln: Faber & Faber, 1972. First edition. 8vo. Rust cloth-backed boards in dust jacket. Art critic John Russell's copy with his pencil signature on the front free end paper. (Russell edited Auden's book POEMS AND LITHOGRAPHS published in 1974.) Fine copy in a fine dust jacket excepting one short closed tear and resulting crease. Lovely copy with a decent association. Fine in a fine dust jacket. (10592) $75.00 4) Auden, W. H. HOMAGE TO CLIO. NY: Random House, 1960. Second printing. Signed by the poet on the title page. Bottom tips severely bumped, else very good, text block fine in a worn and rubbed at edges price-clipped good dust jacket. (Bloomfield & Mendelson A42.a). A good or better copy in the second printing, but quite uncommon signed. (10570) $200.00 5) Auster, Paul (translator). A LITTLE ANTHOLOGY OF SURREALIST POEMS. Minneapolis: Rain Taxi, 2002. Tan pictorial wrappers. Auster's translations from Artaud, Char, Paul Eluard, et al; his first book, originally published in 1972 in mimeo format. Limited to 300 copies. Fresh, crisp, issued as Rain Taxi Brainstorm Series #8. Fine and uncommon in either issue. 35 pp. (9785) $35.00 6) Baca, Jimmy Santiago. MARTIN AND MEDITATIONS ON THE SOUTH VALLEY. NY: New Directions, 1987. First printing of the trade paper issue. The front wrap includes ABA award seal. Signed and dated (12-15-88) by the author. Introduction by poet Denise Levertov, who helped Baca become a published poet. Very good. (7538) $20.00 7) Barnes, Kate. CROSSING THE FIELD. Nobleboro, Maine: Blackberry, 1992. First edition. Original illustrated wraps. Signed on the title page by Kate Barnes. The daughter of Henry Beston and Elizabeth Coatsworth. This is her first collection. She was the first Maine poet laureate. Wood Engravings by Siri Beckman. Fine. (8912) $25.00 8) Barnes, Kate. WHERE THE DEER WERE. Boston: Godine, 1994. First edition. Cloth- backed boards in dust jacket. Inscribed to book dealer Bev [Chaney] by the poet, with a small drawing of a dove. Printed letterpress by The Ascensius Press, South Portland, Maine, with six black and white illustrations by Mary Azarian. 2500 copies printed. Fine copy in like dust jacket. Lovely copy of a lovely book. 84 pp. (5351) $30.00 10) _ _ ANOTHER COPY. Jaffrey, NH: Godine, 2000. First softcover edition. Fine in stiff wraps, lovely condition. Signed on the title page by the author Kate Barnes and signed by the illustrator Mary Azarian. (10339) $15.00 11) Berg, Stephen. New and Selected Poems. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1992. First edition. Cloth-backed paper-covered boards in dust jacket. 219 pages. Jacket blurbs by Hayden Carruth, W.S. Merwin & Donald Revell. Top edge bumped, else about fine in a spine-faded else near fine dust jacket. Berg is best known as a founder and co-editor of The American Poetry Review. (9541) $25.00 12) Berg, Stephen; [Hayden Carruth.] WITH AKHMATOVA AT THE BLACK GATES: Variations. Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1981. First edition. Signed on the title page by Hayden Carruth who wrote the foreword. "Meditations on and through the person and poetry of Anna Akhmatova." Top edge foxed, else very good in an about very good dust jacket, with the top edge chipped, one 3/4 in. piece missing. (8694) $25.00 13) Berrigan, Ted. PARIS, FRANCES. Grindstone City, MI: The Alternative Press, [1982]. First edition. Postcard broadside printing an eight-line poem by Berrigan. This copy signed and dated in the year of publication by the poet. This item originally published in Number 11 from Ken Mikolowski's press: a manila envelope with 16 (unsigned) postcards and broadsides. Printed impression of an airplane in background. This is a fine copy of the Ted Berrigan item only; rare signed. (10531) $500.00 14) Berrigan, Ted et al. THE ALTERNATIVE PRESS #12 (for Ted Berrigan in memoriam). Grindstone City, MI: Alternative Press, 1983. Eleven postcards, bookmarks and broadsides on varied papers. In the original envelope, but incomplete and with variant items. Includes Berrigan's "Remembered Poem" (Fischer p. 59) a broadside on cardboard (approx. 8 1/2 x 11 in.), two by Alice Notley "Odetta" and "Morning Comb" and Lyn Hejinian's untitled poem beginning '"erupting blasphemy". Additional work by Jim Gustafson; Eileen Myles; Gordon Newton & Ken Mikolowski; Charles Henri Ford; Kenward Elmslie & Ken Tisa; Chris Tysh; Tom Clark. The prize is the Berrigan poem, one of 500 printed, but nonetheless scarce. The Berrigan bumped at one corner, all about fine in a worn envelope addressed to publisher Allen DeLoach. (10536) $250.00 The Alternative Press: see also #13 & #130. 15) Ted Berrigan; John Perreault; Anne Waldman; John Giorno. Poster: Architectural League of New York. NY: [1968]. Poster produced as advertisement for the Four Poetry Events at the Architectural League of New York. Offset, monochrome, large: 73 x 57.5 cm. (28 ¼ in. x 22 ½ in.) in a black glazed frame. Fine. (10525) $500.00 16) Berryman, John. BERRYMAN'S SONNETS. NY: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1967. First edition. 115 sonnets mostly written and rewritten according to Charles Thornbury, the editor of his Collected Poems, in 1947, two decades before they were published. A sequence about an illicit love affair with "Lise" (his notebook displayed at an exhibit at the University of MN in 1990, is entitled "Sonnets to Chris" and dated May-July 1947). In mostly strict Petrarchian form his diction is distinctly his own. Although these poems are not related to his Dream Songs, there is a prefatory poem in the persona of Mr. Bones. Fine copy in a bright and complete dust jacket with one area of rubbing on the spine, evidence of old pencil price on flap, else fine. (10558) $35.00 17) Bertolino, James. MAKING SPACE FOR OUR LIVING: Poems. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1975. First edition. Printed wrappers. Signed with a long inscription to poet and UVM professor Dan Lusk by Bertolino in 1978 in River City, Ohio. Association copy in fine condition. Early book from the press (founded in 1972.) 54 pp. (9328) $20.00 18) Bishop, John Peale. MINUTE PARTICULARS. NY: Alcestis Press, 1935. First edition. 8vo. Printed wrappers in original glassine. 71pp. One of 135 (of 165 total) printed on Strathmore Permanent All-Rag. Signed by Bishop as called for. Light wear at corners, else fine and very clean; in an aged glassine with wear along bottom edge and corners else very good. Attractive copy of a nice production. Alcestis press was run by the curious Ronald Lane Latimer who published in the short time of the press's existence William Carlos Williams, R P Warren and Wallace Stevens, among others. (10556) $150.00 19) Blackburn, Paul. AGAINST THE SILENCES. Ln & NY: Permanent Press, 1980. First edition. Pictorial wrappers. One of 800 copies printed (of 1000 total). Preface by Robert Creeley.