Delayed: Not Postponed.
Telephone Books, 1978. Item #2761 Saddle-stitched wrappers, printed on laid paper. Cover photograph by Larry Fink. Project supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Typesetting by Ed Hogan at Aspect Composition in Cambridge, and printed by the New England Free Press in Somerville, MA. The poems within are introduced with a preface by the author, indicating that they were contained in a “not so thin (dusty) manila folder called ‘Poems,’” and date from approximately 1956 to a decade later, when Dawson had first arrived in New York City. He writes: “There were not many galleries that showed American artists in New York in the Fifties, and with the exceptions (aside from me and Dan, Tim, Victor, Basil, Jorge &c up from Black Mountain), the artists were either half again our age, or twice it. We were young, and just as almost all of our seniors, we too were broke, and tense, but we had high ideals and with few exceptions, had made our commitments, yet (not so curiously), self-discovery was the last thing on the list to me as well as others, and it was as if we preferred to be unconscious, so in that loft/bar/street city-world, in my little loft of East 12th Street (135, at present a parking lot), where I froze in the winter and dripped sweat in the summer, I painted and drew, and wrote my stories — and some of these, to me remarkable poems. It was true that I was a sensitive person, still am, but in those days it could be crippling, for it was as if there was no alternative, and yet — that I got so much good work done, in its clearly raw quality, was nonetheless [upon Dawson’s encounter with the archival folder] … a tremendous discovery.” (2) This is from an edition of 1000 copies, of which 26 are lettered A to Z and signed by the poet. This is copy "E," and is fine.
Price: $75.00