Wobbly Rock
San Francisco: Auerhahn Press, 1960. Drawing by R LaVigne. First Edition of 500. Saddle-stapled (6.25 x 8 inches) in printed card wrappers. 6pp with [1]pp illustration. Scarce first book from the enigmatic Beat and San Francisco Renaissance poet Lew Welch (1926-1971), whose brief literary career continues to have a resounding impact on his contemporaries and successive generations. Wobbly Rock, dedicated to Gary Snyder, marks Welch's first publication -- one he was decidedly proud of, as compared to his early writings throughout the prior decade. In a May 18, 1960 letter to Philip Whalen, the poem is mentioned in regards to Donald Allen's landmark anthology The New American Poetry, in which Welch was included: "I do wish Allen had put Wobbly Rock in there instead of those tired pieces of mine. But that's his problem." The feeling was not relegated purely to the author: in a May 6, 1960 letter to Auerhahn's editor David Haselwood, Charles Olson wrote extensively on the new book, writing: "Please tell Lew Welch how much I take it his poem works like crazy. Delivious things go on in it, and it seems to me altogether composed. I had missed his previous stuff, and take this to be as nice a new thing as I have seen -- very true and delicate. Very great."
An uncommonly fresh copy of an enigmatic and important debut.
(I REMAIN: The Letters of Lew Welch & The Correspondence of His Friends Volume One: 1949-1960, edited by Donald Allen). Trace finger-soiling, sharp and clean else; Near Fine. Item #3006
Price: $200.00