The Amerindian Coastline Poem. Fanny Howe. Telephone Books. 1975.
The Amerindian Coastline Poem. Fanny Howe. Telephone Books. 1975.

The Amerindian Coastline Poem.

Telephone Books, 1975. Item #2783

Saddle-stitched wrappers. Cover and centerfold drawing by Hugh Kepets, and back cover photograph by Ted Mankovich (pictured right). Support from the Radcliffe Institute for Women, and publication support provided by the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines from the New York State Council on the Arts. Typeset by Ed Hogan at Aspect Composition in Somerville, MA.


With an epigraph by Herman Melville — “A heart of earthly yearning, frozen by the frost which falleth from the sky” — the poem unfolds in an array of stanzas that leap across the page in unique ways: to settle at the bottom, skip like stones downward towards the page’s edge, or otherwise accumulate near the tops, bottoms, and edges of the page as a projective field. Voices of Simone Weil, Stevie Wonder, and a Tuscaloosa account of a slave purchase are incorporated into Howe’s poem. This was the poet’s second book.


No statement of general edition size, though there was a special edition of 26 copies, lettered A to Z and signed by the poet and artist. This is from the regular edition, and has slight rusting at staples and minor shelf wear to covers and spine, very good.

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