Search Results: Poetry from Aardvark Rare Books

Self-published by Katherine Dunn, 1979. Staplebound Chapbook. Very Good. Staplebound wrappers. 8.5 in. x 5.5 in. Unpaginated (twelve leaves). "Arboreal Abomination #1" printed to rear cover. Inscribed and signed by the author on verso of cover page. Light rubbing to covers. Age-toning to pages. Katherine Dunn's scarcest titles. Worldcat shows only 4 copies in libraries worldwide. Katherine Dunn was a novelist and boxing journalist who lived and worked in Oregon. She is the author of the three novels: Attic; Truck; and Geek Love. Geek Love, her most well-known work, was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Bram Stoker Prize for horror fiction. She also authored the essay collection One Ring Circus. She died in 2016.

Athens, GA: Croissant & Company, 1978. Limited Edition. Pamphlet. Very Good Plus. Gray paperbound pamphlet (Croissant Pamphlets No. 9), 8/5 in. x 5.5 in. Unpaginated (nine leaves). Limited edition, signed by the author on colophon page. #114/426 numbered copies, with Nos. 1-176 signed. Black title and double-line design to front. Light tanning to edges. Ten poems from lauded Oregon poet WIlliam Stafford.

Greenfield Center, New York: Greenfield Review Press, 1972. Staplebound Pamphlet. Very Good. Staplebound pamphlet. Beige wraps with black drawing and lettering to front and Native American design to rear. Association copy signed "For Ingrid, Peace, Joe, with a little drawing of Kokopelli (the humped-back flute player). Association copy (from a collection once owned by poet Ingrid Wendt).The poems included in this chapbook are from Bruchac's second book, as yet unpublished when this was issued. A quarter-sized red sain with a trailing two-inch stem, to bottom of front panel. Otherwise, very good plus.

Portland, OR: Charles Garvin, 1979. First Edition. Single, folded sheet. Near Fine. Single folded sheet. Ascribed to Howard by Michael Horvat (publisher) after discovery in a book, Glenn Lord questions whether this is really a Howard poem (Herman 2006, pp. 156, 397). Who's to know, in the squirrelly self-interest-ruled and ego-driven universe of credit, attribution and legacy. For this reason, this small, one-folded-sheet poem is being offered and sold, ONLY as a fine-press single-folded sheet poem by an author named R.E. Howard, published (and signed) by Charles Garvin of Portland, Oregon in 1979. Nothing more.

Florence, Italy: Giulio Giannini & Son, 1926. Hardcover. Good. 93 pages. Frontis, 24 full page illustrations which apply to the poems. Specially bound with three small leather bands with cover title decorated and illuminated by hand in an illuminated design in a Renaissance motif. Chip and small tear along top corner of spine, toning to spine and some darkening along front edge. Short gift inscription to front endpaer and date [Florence, Italy. 1946] in ink on bottom of front endpaper. Text clean. Must assume this was a special binding of the book bought in Florence. Scarce.

Tokyo, Boston, Singapore: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1998. Stated First Edition. Softcover. Near Fine. 280 pp. including Notes and Bibliography. A wee bit of shelfwear and very very light rubbing to corners, previous owner's name and address to half-title page. Overall, tight and bright copy of this quite scarce first book in English on a woman haiku poet. First book in English on a woman Haiku poet. "Chiyo-ni (1703-1775) also known as Kaga no Chiyo, is perhaps Japan's most celebrated female haiku poet. A student of two of Basho's disciples, she worked in an age when haiku was largely a male domain. As a poet, painter, and Buddhist nun, she lived a vibrant life while creating poems of crystalline clarity and delicate sensuality. "...more than one hundred translations of her finest seasonal haiku, renku (linked verse), and haibun (travel poems). Most of the poems appear here for the first time in English..."

Paris: Librairie Alphonse Lemerre, 1929. Hardcover. VERY GOOD. IN FRENCH. Moderate rubbing to spine and board edges. Spine caps with 3, .25" or smaller open tears to top and bottom. Bottom spine cap, 3/8" x .25" open tear. Corners bumped. Front hinge professionally reinforced. Faded gilt top edge. Foxing to front and rear endpapers. Text is brown with age. Very fragile pages. Soft deckle edges. Leather boards with what appears to resemble 3 iron gate hinges with scrolled edges embossed to front. Thin ribbon bookmark in yellow, red, and green attached at headband. Gorgeous green marbled boards. Gilt lettering to spine. 251 pp. CHOICE OF POETRIES. This sweet, well-worn book starts out with the poem, Darkness. Others included in this volume are: The Triumph of Petrarch, Spectrum of Pink, The World is Wicked, The Blind, Sleep. The last part of the book is a 17 scene play, Le Tricorne Enchante.

Ephraim, Wisconsin: Druid Books, 1976. First Edition. Softcover. Near Fine. First edition of this legendary, perhaps undersung-by-most Cleveland late-beat poet, friend of Ginsberg's, tireless, anarchic American Crazy Wisdom man-of-the book, of spiritual seeking, reaching out to make utterance, both public and private ranting, streetcorner litany, american language elevated to prayer and muttering noveau-Tibetan ululation, hemphead and hedonist, political animal, and finally suicide in 1968, at age 26. Bright yellow wrappers. Very minor shelf wear.

New York: The John Day Company, 1940. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good / Good Plus. Octavo, 5.75 x 8.75 in., pp. 102. SIgned by author on title page. Black cloth boards with white title to spine. Rubbing to extremities. Age-toning to endpapers. Rubbing, small creases, and several small closed tears to edges of dustjacket. 2 x 1/4 inch open tear to top of dustjacket spine.

New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1923. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Good. 54 pp. Green paper boards with front board paste-on label, buff with mathing green border and delicate script stating "A Dinner of Herbs"/Poems by/Nancy Barr Mavity. The nine or so decades since publication have washing away much of the green color on the front board, and the paper spine label is long gone. Some rubbing to edges, but otherwise, still quite solidly bound. This book of verse, Inscribed (to Ruth Mavity) and SIGNED "From Nancy Barr Mavity", is her first book. Nancy Barr Mavity was a book reviewer and widely-published journalist, having written for Harpers, Sunset, Philosophical Review, The Bookman, The Dial, The Century, The Oakland Tribune and other publications. She went on to craft the following murder mysteries (Collins Crime Club, many) most of which concern the investigations of a newspaper reporter/detective named Peter Piper. Some of her titles include: The Body on the Floor (1929); The Tule Marsh Murder (1929); The… Read More

Los Angeles, California: Black Sparrow Press, 1967. Softcover. Very Good.. Numbered limited edition (#237 out of 300) sewn in beige paper wrappers, signed by the author on the colophon page (at rear). Designed and printed by Saul & Lillian Marks at the Plantin Press, Los Angeles for the Black Sparrow Press. Light edgewear, one small closed tear to top edge, and some sunning to thick, card self-wraps. 10 pp.

New York: Published by Charles Reznikoff, 1927. Limited, numbered, signed edition. Hardcover. Near fine in very good dust jacket. Limited edition of 375 copies with this numbered 235 in ink. Signed by Reznikoff in ink on the third free endpaper and dated June, 1975. Small octavo. Green cloth with spine titles in gilt in plain brown dust jacket with spine title and original $3.00 price on inside flap. Cover has tiny bit of edgewear at bottom corner of spine, otherwise bright and clean. Jacket has some light toning and small chip to rear top corner. Jacket is in a mylar protector. 67 pages. Some offsetting to front and rear endpaper, otherwise bright and clean. Printed and published by Reznikoff. Colophon states: "I set the type by hand and did the press work. 375 copies were printed and the type distributed. This is number 235. C.R." (Signed.

Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 1981. Hardcover. Very Good in Good Plus Dustjacket. Octavo. Blue cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering to spine. Clean, sharp corners,, bright text block. Dustjacket illustration features "Portrait of Fujiwara Teika (1162-1241). xliv + pp. 652, including index. Review copy with publisher's slips laid in (a trifle creased). "...Sato and Watson have p;ut together not just a compilation of Japanese poems, but a primer for the study of the tradition itself, beginning with the 8th century 'Kojiki' and 'Man'yoshu' up through the startlingly Westernized poets of modern Japan...This is a landmark anthology." (Publishers Weekly, quoted on front dustjacket flap).

Philadelphia, PA (& London): J.B. Lippincott Company, 1910. First edition. Hardcover. Good. 8vo. Navy blue, cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering, and gilt vignette of sun emanating from a lighthouse beneath a sky of clouds. Top edge gilt, fore-edge and tail untrimmed. Moderate rubbing to extremities, and a bit of staining to boards. Both accession label and deaccession stamp to front pastedown. Front free endpapers shwo cartoons and poems tipped-in. Numbered copy (#154) Former library copy with usual markings (spine label, pocketPhoto frontis of poet. Edited with an introductory preface, by W.T. Burney 308 pp. Samuel Leonidas Simpson (1845-1900), was known as "the "Burns of Oregon,and " is widely regarded as nineteenth century Oregon's most beloved poet. A prolific writer whose poems and stories were published throughout the Pacific Northwest, Simpson is remembered today for only one poem, "Beautiful Willamette," written when he was twenty-two years old. At the height of his fame, however,… Read More

Indianapolis, IN: The Hollenbeck Press, 1899. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 12mo, 5.25 x 7.7 in., pp. 92. Frontispiece of the homestead of "Rose Lawn". Red cloth boards with gilt title to cover. Light rubbing to corners and top and bottom of spine. Light, faded water ring on cover. Half-inch brown stain to title page. Previous owner's signature and inscription to rear pastedown with family history detiails. Owner was nephew of "Aunt Gertz" and leaves notes as to where his family is represented in the poems.

New York: Harper and Brothers, 1929. First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Binding "B", featuring a blue and silver city skyline repeating within grids across boards, is generally agreed to be the less common of the two bindings, and was issued in a run of only 1392 copies. Previous owner's bookplate -- graphic of what appears to be the Golden Gate Bridge -- to front pastedown. Following White's "Less Than Nothing, or The Life and Times of Sterling Finney", a solely in-house New Yorker publication issued in 1927 "to send to agents and customers as a good-will offering,", "The Lady is Cold" was published at age 30. Stated First Edition. pp. [2], xii, 95, [2]. Rubbing and nudging to corners.

Chicago, IL: The Bookfellows, 1922. Paperback. Very Good Minus in Good Envelope.. Marjorie Dixon. Stringbound, with lovely cover illustration by Marjorie Dixon. 8 1/2 in. x 5 5/8 in. One of 350 copies on Old Stratford paper. Lettering by Will Ransom. "Printing by Luther A. Brewer...All done in the month of April nineteen hundred twenty-two." Sixteen pages. In original publisher's envelope, flap torn along crease. Unopened. Second prizewinner Hazel Hall (1886-1924), Minnesota-born but was raised in Portland Oregon went on to write a number of poems, and win poetry prizes. Pearl Anderson, of Poetry Magazine, had this to say about her collection: "Comes Hazel Hall with her little book. every word and emotion of which is poignantly authentic."

New York: New York University Press, 1980. Hardcover. Near Fine / Near Fine. Matching three volumes: Quarto,10.25 in x 7.24 in. Total pp. lxxx, 779. Red cloth boards with author's initials in gilt to front. Gilt title on black stamped panel to spine. Light green topstain. Dustjacket protected in mylar.

New York: Doubleday and Company, 1948. Second Printing. Hardcover. Very Good in Good Only Dustjacket. Charles Seide. Octavo. Black cloth-covered boards. First printing of the second book of one of one of the most beloved of American poets, who died of a heart attack at age 55. who went on to win -- six years after publication of this book -- a Pulitzer Prize and two National Book Awards for Poetry. This book contains a number of poems inspired by Roethke's memories as a boy working in his parent's floral business. in Saginaw, Michigan. Later, he wrote: "The greenhouse "is my symbol for the whole of life, a womb, a heaven-on-earth.". A wee bit of shelfwear to the book itself, light rubbing to extremities. Dustjacket (with $2.50 price intact) shows long missing strip, no more than 1" high, across the top of the rear panel, across spine, and a third of the way across the top of the front panel. 1/2". Small chips to bottom dustjacket spine and front flap. SIGNED by poet in his characteristic green… Read More

San Francisco, CA: Stolen Paper Editions, 1966. Early Edition. Staplebound Pamphlet. Good. Stapled pamphlet, 7.75 in. x 7 in., 7 leaves with 6 poems. Cardstock cover with brown and blue kama sutra imagery to front and back, and white title to front. Edgewear to spine, and light thumbing to bottom left front corner. Dampstains to endpapers, fore-edge, and final three leaves. This title was part of an exhibit about Tantra in the British Museum. The sexually provocative imagery led to an explosive obscenity/censorship trial - with a guilty verdict - in San Francisco in 1967.