Main Street Fine Books - Out-of-print and antiquarian books, first editions, signed books

Browsing Books

Poetry

View Glossary

There are 243 items in this category. Here are the first 30.

next page »

1. ADOFF, Arnold. All the Colors of the Race. Illustrations by John Steptoe. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1982. 8vo. Brown cloth spine and tan speckled paper over boards, pictorial dust jacket. 56pp. Frontispiece, illustrations, decorative endpapers. Very good/very good. Tight, clean first edition of this narrative poem of a youth's reflections on being half black and half white.
Price: $30.00

2. An Afternoon with Carl Sandburg. [Chicago]: The Modern Poetry Association, 1956. Small 4to. Wrappers. Near fine. Three-panel foldout leaflet for this "Poetry" magazine sponsored reading held at Chicago's Shubert Theater. Front wrapper illustration plus facsimile of handwritten fair copy of a portion of the poem "Chicago."
Price: $20.00

3. AIKIN, Dr. Select Works of the British Poets, in a Chronological Series.... With Biographical and Critical Notices. Philadelphia: A. Hart, 1850. Three volumes. Small 4to. Original red cloth, bind-embossed, git spines. vii, 807pp; 732pp; 760pp. Good plus. Tight and attractive, with some edgewear and wear to corners -- overall nice, with spine gilt bright. 19th century circular ownership inkstamp on front flyleaf of each volume; discreet ex-library, with very few markings. Volumes 2, 3 and 4 of this 5-voume set. Volume Two covers Jonson to Beattie, Volume Three Falconer to Scott and Volume Four Southey to Croly.
Price: $75.00

4. AKIN, Katy. Impassioned Cows by Moonlight: Poems. Brooklyn, NY: Hanging Loose Books, 1975. 8vo. Stiff tan pictorial wrappers. 69pp. Very good. Slightest of edgewear to outer wrappers only. First edition, tight and attractive.
Price: $15.00

5. ALDEN, Samuel. The Rebelliard, or Rebellion Poem: An Heroic Poem in Five Cantos. Amherst, MA: Storrs & M'Cloud, 1869. 16mo. Original printed yellow wrappers. 36pp. Fair. Outer wrappers slightly soiled and delicate and edgeworn. Probable sole edition. Topical poem, "from an old manuscript copy found lying among old records & c," here published for the first time "with the view that the sons of their Alma Mater, and their cousins of sister colleges, will be glad to have some record of this famous Rebellion" -- a now-obscure altercation involving students and well-known Harvard faculty members. Violence, high oratory, chest-thumping... everything but pie-throwing. Most unusual. Not in Sabin.
Price: $75.00

6. ALDINGTON, Richard (editor). The Viking Book of Poetry of the English-Speaking World. New York: The Viking Press, 1958. Complete 2-volume set. 8vo. Two-tone blue paper over boards, dust jackets. xlvi, 654pp; lxxiii, pp. 655-1297. Near fine/very good. Ownership name/address neatly inkstamped on front flyleaf of each volume; slight jacket edgewear. Just a book club edition -- but tight, very handsome and an excellent broad anthology.
Price: $30.00

7. ASPEL, Paulene. Crossings/Traversees. Translations by Leigh DeNeef, Harry Duncan, Louis A. Haselmayer, Donald Justice and Paulene Aspel. Urbana, IL: The Finial Press, 1966. 4to. Blue cloth. 41pp. Near fine. Slightest of edgewear. First edition of this poetry collection featuring side-by-side English and French versions, limited to 220 copies (this copy unnumbered). A lovely, tight copy.
Price: $150.00

8. ATWATER, Richard (editor). Rickety Rimes of Riq. Chicago: Robert O. Ballou, 1925. 16mo. Tan cloth spine with paper label and patterned brown paper over boards. vii, 123pp. Very good. First edition, limited to 600 copies. Unusual collection of "zigzag verse."
Price: $65.00

9. AUSLANDER, Joseph. Sunrise Trumpets. Introduction by Padraic Colum. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1924. Small 8vo. Black cloth. xiii, 73pp. Good plus. First edition.
Price: $50.00

10. AXELROD, Daniel Elliott. History Doesn't Kill Me: First Selected Poems. Long Island: Writers Ink Press, 1988. 8vo. White pictorial wrappers. 18pp. Very good. Inscribed by Axelrod. Second edition, #77 of 100 copies; this copy also signed and inscribed by the poet on the front flyleaf "For Rose -- / from the youngest of / the Axelrod clan with / Love, / Danny / (& David + Joan + Jes + Em)." Rose is poet/author/artist Rose Graubart, wife of poet David Ignatow.
Price: $25.00

11. BABCOCK, Donald C. New England Harvest: A Book of Poems. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1953. Small 4to. Tan cloth, pictorial dust jacket. 80pp. Near fine/very good. Bookplate on front pastedown. Inscribed by Babcock. First edition, elegantly inscribed on the front flyleaf "For Edna E. Voight, / who found this New England harvest / in California, / with the author's kind regards. / Donald C. Babcock."
Price: $30.00

12. BACON, Leonard. Ph.D.s: Male and Female Created He Them. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1925. Small 8vo. Black cloth. 76pp. Very good. First edition. Two lengthy poems, "Sophia Trenton" (first published 1920) and "The Dunbar Tragedy" (first appearance).
Price: $20.00

13. BEECHER, John (1904-80). Collection of Poetry Broadsides and Leaflets. One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices. Offered here is a collection of roughly 20 of Beecher's poetry broadsides, leaflets and ephemeral pieces (individual descriptions to follow), a choice gathering of these beautiful handset and hand-printed pieces all in uniformly fine condition. As follows (chronologically): 1. "To Alexander Meiklejohn." Oakland, CA: Morning Star Press, 1956. Broadside. Folio (9¼" X 17"). A tribute to the controversial educator and important civil libertarian Meiklejohn (1872-1964), a philosophy professor who founded the University of Wisconsin's radical Experimental College in 1928 (folded in 1932). In September 1929 Beecher became an English instructor there. Occasioned by reading some "testimony" of Meiklejohn's, Beecher seeks to celebrate his mentor before it's too late -- before "the long black limousine will stand / before your door and all unhearing you / will trundle off on casters while the winds / of elegiac oratory fill / the public prints and how the hearts will ache / of us who were your sons." A surprisingly emotional and personal outburst of affection for the educator whose "ideas broke the mould / of prejudice in which my mind was formed." He goes on: "You let the world in on me, were the yeast / that set me boiling with desire to know / not merely but to do. I thought I loved / my country. You taught why America / deserved my love and all mankind's because / America was more than just a land; / it was the sum of all that men had won / against the ancient darkness...." Meiklejohn would live to see this tribute -- and then some, living another eight years before passing away in 1964 at the age of 92. 2. CREED, Isabel H. "The Idol and Other Verse." Sebastopol, CA: Morning Star Press, 1957. Small 4to (6½" X 10"). Stiff cream wrappers. 48pp. Front wrapper and colophon page feature block prints by Barbara Beecher. Edition limited to 500 copies. Rare example of a Morning Star Press title not consisting of Beecher's own work. 3. "Inquest." San Francisco: Morning Star Press, June 1957. Leaflet. Small 4to (7" X 11"). Front wrapper features rubber block print by Barbara Beecher. Hand set and hand printed by Beecher. This moving poem eulogizes William K. Sherwood, a young cancer researcher who on June 17, 1957 swallowed poison -- two days before he was to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Beecher, whose strong feelings about McCarthy's tactics were well known, must have spontaneously composed this angry and moving poem, set the type and printed this leaflet post haste in order to produce it within the same month as Sherwood's suicide. The poem even makes subtle reference to the "fierce resentment of being televised" mentioned in his suicide note. Beecher pointedly describes "his sweating face / on TV screens across the land, a kind / of super-pillory where all may mock / and spit at him, his wife and children shamed / in all the circles where they move...." Beecher concludes, "And so he took the poison. What would you / have had him do, members of the Committee?" 4. "Moloch." San Francisco: Morning Star Press, July 1957. Leaflet. Small 4to (7" X 11"). Front wrapper rubber block by Barbara Beecher. Hand set and hand printed by Beecher. In 1957 a seven-year-old boy named Butch Bartoli died from leukemia which his parents blamed on atomic fallout over their ranch in Nye County, Nevada. A touching portrait of "a ranch kid / a tow-head like yours or mine at seven / his pockets full of marbles / pieces of string / a tiny car or plane maybe / he'd got with a box top," followed by a condemnation of the "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs" school of thought on human progress. "...still the poisonous mushrooms climb the cobalt sky / over the Reveille range / but Butch Bardoli / sleeps on" -- a poignant, chilling piece. 5. "Morning Star: A Quarto of Poetry -- IV." Scottsdale, AZ: Morning Star Press, Autumn 1959. Small 4to (7" X 10"). Stiff brown wrappers. (19pp). Limited to 500 copies. Rubber block illustration ("Our Press") by Barbara Beecher. John Beecher edited this short-lived quarterly, which contains poems by himself, Henry Birnbaum, William Newberry, John R. Reed, Olga Cabral, Jerry M. Wheeler, Jack Anderson, Mo Tien Teng, Charles Shaw and Peter Jones. Laid in are four beautifully produced promotional advertisements for the Morning Star Quartos series. 6. WHITMAN, Walt. "Liberty Poem for Asia, Africa, Europe, America, Australia, Cuba & the Archipelagoes of the Sea." Jerome, AZ: The Rampart Press, 1959. Broadside. Folio (12½" X 22"). One of the Rampart Press's most handsome productions and one of the only ones not featuring a Beecher poem, limited to 250 copies printed in black and red on fine creamy stock. This "Leaves of Grass" poem did not appear until the second, 1856 edition, and in later editions was retitled the less cumbersome "To a Foil’d European Revolutionaire." A visually striking piece. 7. "Homage to a Subversive." Scottsdale, AZ: Rampart Press, 1961. Leaflet (never folded). Small 4to (6¼" X 9¼"). One of Beecher's most famous poems, a tribute to Henry David Thoreau on the occasion of the upcoming centennial of his death. Beecher makes clear that Thoreau-type civil disobedience was as needed then (1961) as during Thoreau's lifetime. 8. "Undesirables." Phoenix, AZ: Rampart Press, 1962. Broadside. 4to (8½" X 12"). Limited to 300 copies. Titled in red. Opening with Emma Lazarus's moving line from her 1883 sonnet "The New Colossus" engraved at the base of the Statue of Liberty ("I lift my lamp beside the golden door"), Beecher rails against the State Department's Cold War-era scrutiny of immigrants: "The lifted lamp is guttering, near spent / its fuel. Double-barred the golden door / which, when it opens, opens on a chain." Notes how celebrated men such as Carl Schurz, Anton Dvorak and others would not pass muster, closing with, "These men were all / subversive as in earlier times Tom Paine, / Pulaski, Lafayette. The authorities / would surely bar such undesirables." 9. "Conformity Means Death." Phoenix, AZ: Rampart Press, 1963. Broadside. 4to (9" X 12½"). Limited to 200 copies on Frankfurt mouldmade paper. A tribute to philosopher and nuclear weapons protestor Bertrand Russell (1872-1970): "Our time's true saint he is, fealty / transcends the bounds of nation, tribe and clan, / embracing all who inhabit earth and their / inheritors...." 10. "On Acquiring a Cistercian Breviary." Phoenix, AZ: Rampart Press, January 1963. Broadside. 4to (9" X 12½"). Titled in blue. Edition limited to 200 copies. Dedicated to Father M. Louis, O.C.S.O. -- better known as Thomas Merton (1915-68), the celebrated Trappist monk with the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance. Ruminations on faith and the monastic life brought on by perusing "these old volumes that my hands / profane." 11. "Bestride the Narrow World." Phoenix, AZ: Rampart Press, January 1963. Broadside. 4to (9" X 12½"). Titled in red. Edition limited to 200 copies. Presumably inspired by the Ap Bac hamlet encounter in Vietnam, in which the Vietcong for the first time took on the American military and the South Vietnamese Army, Beecher ruminates upon war. A fine critique in true Beecher form, reading in part: ""Proud / as pterodactyls in their prime are we, / mighty as mammoths...." His title comes from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" : "He doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and we petty men walk under his luge legs, and peep about." 12. "A Humble Petition to the President of Harvard." Phoenix, AZ: Rampart Press, January 1963. Broadside. Folio (12½" X 16"). Titled in red. Limited to 250 copies printed on German mouldmade paper. Although Beecher didn't graduate from Harvard, he did attend Harvard Graduate School for language and literature in 1926 -- hence his opening declaration here, "I am, sir, so to speak, 'a Harvard man.'" Possibly occasioned by a much later visit by Beecher to his almost-alma (he refers to "Nostalgic reminiscences brought on / by your most recent bulletin"), this delightful piece begins as a tribute to the legendary Harvard literature professor G.L. Kittredge (1860-1941), Shakespeare and Chaucer authority, prim and proper "in forked snowy beard and pearl-grey spats" whose teachings were equally fastidious: "Prince Hamlet / made no unseemly quips anent the thighs / Ophelia spread for him...." -- thus "Nice young men were we / in Kitty's class...." Personal recollections follow before a Lionel Trilling essay ("Commitment to the Modern") found in the "recent bulletin" shows the poet that "you do not change / at Harvard, like castrati whose voices / retain their boyish purity." Harvard's status quo conservative establishment, he suddenly realizes, rub this radical poet the wrong way: "Fend from me, I beg you, sir, / offers of chairs magnates endow. Waylay / me with no teaching sinecure.... Summon me never to recite my verse / before a convocation in my honor / nor to appear in doctoral costume / as orator at Commencement." A wonderfully dark, provocative, humorous poem. 13. "An Air That Kills." Phoenix, AZ: Rampart Press, February 1963. Leaflet. Small 4to (7" X 11"). Limited to 200 copies hand set and hand printed. Unusually dispirited observations "commemorating the opening of an exhibition of their work at Arizona State University in Tempe" in which a discouraged Beecher notes how different life feels as he ages -- less vibrant, less alive. "Times were worse then / Jobs were hard to get / but do you know / a man could breathe / It's as if the oxygen / were all exhausted / from the atmosphere / That's how I feel / and why I quit...." He's quick to point out, "Don't make politics / out of what I say / It's just that something isn't there / that used to be / and kept us going." 14. "Yours in the Bonds." Phoenix, AZ: Rampart Press, February 1963. Leaflet (never folded). Small 4to (6¼" X 9½"). Limited to 300 copies hand set and hand printed. Cynical narrative of a fraternity alumni debating with a fraternity brother about repairing a much-abused house or losing it to a university. An enjoyable parody of exclusive organizations that profess to preach fraternity but actually breed the intolerance and bigotry: "we saw the world as our private / demesne to plunder rightfully while our / inferiors stood helplessly aside...." He concludes, "The brotherhood we preached / and practised was a fraud. Not love but hate / united us -- the vilest kind that hates / a man because his name or skin is wrong, / oblivious to what at heart he is." 15. "Undesirables: poems by John Beecher." Lanham, MD: Goosetree Press, 1964. 16mo (4¼" X 6 3/4"). Wrappers. (13pp). Beecher's facsimile signature at conclusion of closing poem. The only piece in this collection not published by Beecher himself, but a nice little gathering of 11 Beecher poems, including the title poem, "Homage to a Subversive" and "Yours in the Bonds." 16. "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems." Cocoa Beach, FL: Red Mountain Editions, 1971. Small 4to. Brown cloth, dust jacket. 81pp. Frontispiece block print by Barbara Beecher. Fine/fine. Third printing of this reprint of Beecher's Rampart Press 1962 poetry collection. Laid in is a small 4to 4pp leaflet for the original edition. Fine. 17. [EPHEMERAL PROMOTIONAL PIECES]. Several advertising leaflets, such as the ca. 1973 4pp 4to "JOHN BEECHER Reads His Poems" and the similar ca. 1975 "John Beecher," each featuring a superb closeup full-page portrait of Beecher by Greg Leary. Also, an 11" X 8½" promotional leaflet with recto featuring a Beecher portrait by Barbara Beecher and text in her calligraphy. Also, an 8vo 2pp handbill for the 1966 Red Mountain Editions first printing of "To Live and Die in Dixie." Such a collection, all in immaculate condition, could be individually pieced together only at far greater cost -- and even greater effort and patience.
Price: $500.00

14. BEECHER, John. "And I Will Be Heard." New York: Twice a Year Press, [1940]. 8vo. Stiff blue wrappers. 43pp. Near fine. First separate printing of these "two talks to the American people" (to cite the front wrapper subtitle), consisting of the title poem and also "Think It Over, America" -- both of which were first published in this annual anthology. A quite handsome copy. One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $25.00

15. BEECHER, John. A Humble Petition to the President of Harvard. Phoenix, AZ: Rampart Press, January 1963. Broadside. Folio (12½" X 16"). Titled in red. Limited to 250 copies printed on German mouldmade paper. Fine. First separate printing. Although Beecher didn't graduate from Harvard, he did attend Harvard Graduate School for language and literature in 1926 -- hence his opening declaration here, "I am, sir, so to speak, 'a Harvard man.'" Possibly occasioned by a much later visit by Beecher to his almost-alma (he refers to "Nostalgic reminiscences brought on / by your most recent bulletin"), this delightful piece begins as a tribute to the legendary Harvard literature professor G.L. Kittredge (1860-1941), Shakespeare and Chaucer authority, prim and proper "in forked snowy beard and pearl-grey spats" whose teachings were equally fastidious: "Prince Hamlet / made no unseemly quips anent the thighs / Ophelia spread for him...." -- thus "Nice young men were we / in Kitty's class...." Personal recollections follow before a Lionel Trilling essay ("Commitment to the Modern") found in the "recent bulletin" shows the poet that "you do not change / at Harvard, like castrati whose voices / retain their boyish purity." Harvard's status quo conservative establishment, he suddenly realizes, rub this radical poet the wrong way: "Fend from me, I beg you, sir, / offers of chairs magnates endow. Waylay / me with no teaching sinecure.... Summon me never to recite my verse / before a convocation in my honor / nor to appear in doctoral costume / as oratoe at Commencement." A wonderfully dark, provocative, humorous poem. One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $75.00

16. BEECHER, John. An Air That Kills. Phoenix, AZ: Rampart Press, February 1963. Leaflet. Small 4to (7" X 11"). Limited to 200 copies hand set and hand printed. Fine. First separate printing. Unusually dispirited observations "commemorating the opening of an exhibition of their work at Arizona State University in Tempe" in which a discouraged Beecher notes how different life feels as he ages -- less vibrant, less alive. "Times were worse then / Jobs were hard to get / but do you know / a man could breathe / It's as if the oxygen / were all exhausted / from the atmosphere / That's how I feel / and why I quit...." He's quick to point out, "Don't make politics / out of what I say / It's just that something isn't there / that used to be / and kept us going." One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $50.00

17. BEECHER, John. Bestride the Narrow World. Phoenix, AZ: Rampart Press, January 1963. Broadside. 4to (9" X 12½"). Titled in red. Edition limited to 200 copies. Fine. First separate printing. Presumably inspired by the Ap Bac hamlet encounter in Vietnam, in which the Vietcong for the first time took on the American military and the South Vietnamese Army, Beecher ruminates upon war. A fine critique in true Beecher form, reading in part: "Proud / as pterodactyls in their prime are we, / mighty as mammoths...." His title comes from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" : "He doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus, and we petty men walk under his luge legs, and peep about." One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $75.00

18. BEECHER, John. Conformity Means Death. Phoenix, AZ: Rampart Press, 1963. Broadside. 4to (9" X 12½"). Limited to 200 copies on Frankfurt mouldmade paper. Fine. First separate printing. A tribute to philosopher and nuclear weapons protestor Bertrand Russell (1872-1970): "Our time's true saint he is, fealty / transcends the bounds of nation, tribe and clan, / embracing all who inhabit earth and their / inheritors...." One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $75.00

19. BEECHER, John. Homage to a Subversive. Scottsdale, AZ: Rampart Press, 1961. Leaflet (never folded). Small 4to (6¼" X 9¼"). Fine. First separate printing. One of Beecher's most famous poems, a tribute to Henry David Thoreau on the occasion of the upcoming centennial of his death. Beecher makes clear that Thoreau-type civil disobedience was as needed then (1961) as during Thoreau's lifetime. One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $40.00

20. BEECHER, John. Inquest. San Francisco: Morning Star Press, June 1957. Leaflet. Small 4to (7" X 11"). Front wrapper features rubber block print by Barbara Beecher. Hand set and hand printed by Beecher. Fine. First separate printing. This moving poem eulogizes William K. Sherwood, a young cancer researcher who on June 17, 1957 swallowed poison -- two days before he was to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Beecher, whose strong feelings about McCarthy's tactics were well known, must have spontaneously composed this angry and moving poem, set the type and printed this leaflet post haste in order to produce it within the same month as Sherwood's suicide. The poem even makes subtle reference to the "fierce resentment of being televised" mentioned in his suicide note. Beecher pointedly describes "his sweating face / on TV screens across the land, a kind / of super-pillory where all may mock / and spit at him, his wife and children shamed / in all the circles where they move...." Beecher concludes, "And so he took the poison. What would you / have had him do, members of the Committee?" One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $40.00

21. BEECHER, John. Moloch. San Francisco: Morning Star Press, July 1957. Leaflet. Small 4to (7" X 11"). Front wrapper rubber block by Barbara Beecher. Hand set and hand printed by John Beecher. Fine. First separate printing. In 1957 a seven-year-old boy named Butch Bartoli died from leukemia which his parents blamed on atomic fallout over their ranch in Nye County, Nevada. A touching portrait of "a ranch kid / a tow-head like yours or mine at seven / his pockets full of marbles / pieces of string / a tiny car or plane maybe / he'd got with a box top," followed by a condemnation of the "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs" school of thought on human progress. "...still the poisonous mushrooms climb the cobalt sky / over the Reveille range / but Butch Bardoli / sleeps on" -- a poignant, chilling piece. One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $40.00

22. BEECHER, John. Morning Star: A Quarto of Poetry -- IV. Scottsdale, AZ: Morning Star Press, Autumn 1959. Small 4to (7" X 10"). Stiff brown wrappers. (19pp). Limited to 500 copies. Fine. Rubber block illustration ("Our Press") by Barbara Beecher. John Beecher edited this short-lived quarterly, which contains poems by himself, Henry Birnbaum, William Newberry, John R. Reed, Olga Cabral, Jerry M. Wheeler, Jack Anderson, Mo Tien Teng, Charles Shaw and Peter Jones. Laid in are four beautifully produced promotional advertisements for the Morning Star Quartos series. One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $35.00

23. BEECHER, John. On Acquiring a Cistercian Breviary. Phoenix, AZ: Rampart Press, January 1963. Broadside. 4to (9" X 12½"). Titled in blue. Edition limited to 200 copies. Fine. First separate printing. Dedicated to Father M. Louis, O.C.S.O. -- better known as Thomas Merton (1915-68), the celebrated Trappist monk with the Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance. Ruminations on faith and the monastic life brought on by perusing "these old volumes that my hands / profane." One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $75.00

24. BEECHER, John. Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems. Cocoa Beach, FL: Red Mountain Editions, 1971. Small 4to. Brown cloth, dust jacket. 81pp. Frontispiece block print by Barbara Beecher. Fine/fine. Third printing of this reprint of Beecher's Rampart Press 1962 poetry collection. Laid in is a small 4to 4pp leaflet for the original edition. Fine. One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $20.00

25. BEECHER, John. Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems. [Chicago: Vanguard Books, 1980]. 8vto. Stiff glazed pictorial wrappers. 81pp. Frontispiece block print by Barbara Beecher. Fine. Tight, handsome fourth printing of this reprint of Beecher's Rampart Press 1962 poetry collection. One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $10.00

26. BEECHER, John. To Alexander Meiklejohn. Oakland, CA: Morning Star Press, 1956. Broadside. Folio (9¼" X 17"). Fine. Hand set and hand printed by Beecher. First separate printing. A tribute to the controversial educator and important civil libertarian Meiklejohn (1872-1964), a philosophy professor who founded the University of Wisconsin's radical Experimental College in 1928 (folded in 1932). In September 1929 Beecher became an English instructor there. Occasioned by reading some "testimony" of Meiklejohn's, Beecher seeks to celebrate his mentor before it's too late -- before "the long black limousine will stand / before your door and all unhearing you / will trundle off on casters while the winds / of elegiac oratory fill / the public prints and how the hearts will ache / of us who were your sons." A surprisingly emotional and personal outburst of affection for the educator whose "ideas broke the mould / of prejudice in which my mind was formed." He goes on: "You let the world in on me, were the yeast / that set me boiling with desire to know / not merely but to do. I thought I loved / my country. You taught why America / deserved my love and all mankind's because / America was more than just a land; / it was the sum of all that men had won / against the ancient darkness...." Meiklejohn would live to see this tribute -- and then some, living another eight years before passing away in 1964 at the age of 92. One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $50.00

27. BEECHER, John. Undesirables. Phoenix, AZ: Rampart Press, 1962. Broadside. 4to (8½" X 12"). Limited to 300 copies. Titled in red. Fine. First separate printing. Opening with Emma Lazarus's moving line from her 1883 sonnet "The New Colossus" engraved at the base of the Statue of Liberty ("I lift my lamp beside the golden door"), Beecher rails against the State Department's Cold War-era scrutiny of immigrants: "The lifted lamp is guttering, near spent / its fuel. Double-barred the golden door / which, when it opens, opens on a chain." Notes how celebrated men such as Carl Schurz, Anton Dvorak and others would not pass muster, closing with, "These men were all / subversive as in earlier times Tom Paine, / Pulaski, Lafayette. The authorities / would surely bar such undesirables." One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $75.00

28. BEECHER, John. Yours in the Bonds. Phoenix, AZ: Rampart Press, February 1963. Leaflet (never folded). Small 4to (6¼" X 9½"). Limited to 300 copies hand set and hand printed. Fine. First separate printing. Cynical narrative of a fraternity alumni debating with a fraternity brother about repairing a much-abused house or losing it to a university. An enjoyable parody of exclusive organizations that profess to preach fraternity but actually breed the intolerance and bigotry: "we saw the world as our private / demesne to plunder rightfully while our / inferiors stood helplessly aside...." He concludes, "The brotherhood we preached / and practiced was a fraud. Not love but hate / united us -- the vilest kind that hates / a man because his name or skin is wrong, / oblivious to what at heart he is." One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices.
Price: $50.00

29. BLACKBURN, Paul. In on or About the Premises. New York: Grossman Publishing, 1968. Small 4to. Stiff green pictorial wrappers. (Ca. 75pp). Very good. Slight5 edgewear and rubbing. Second printing of this slim verse collection, tight and attractive.
Price: $15.00

30. BROWN, Christopher. Cape Hatteras 1. [Champaign, IL]: Finial Press, 1969. Small 4to. Wrappers. (2pp). Very good.Mild bit of soiling to outer wrappers (only). Titled simply "A newly set poem of the Finial Press by Christopher Brown, 1969" on the plain front wrapper, the inside left page features a simple abstract printed line drawing, the right page being the text of this 7-line free verse poem about the famed North Carolina cape. About Brown we know little, except that he contributed articles to the "Dictionary of Literary Biography." Finial Press was founded in 1962 in Champaign by Alvin Doyle Moore, its purpose to promote contemporary poetry. Moore was head of the graphic design department at the University of Illinois. An unusual little offprint, printed on fine heavy stock deckle edged paper. First and likely sole edition.
Price: $20.00