Opening Hours
Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
Rare Books
Johnny Appleseed, and other poems
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Daily: 10 A.M.–5 P.M.
Closed on Tuesdays
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, CA 91108
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Rare Books
"Forty-two poems including nonsense rhymes, historical poems and lyrics. Excerpts from The Congo and The Chinese nightingale."
297515
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Manuscripts
Three untitled poems by Vachel Lindsay: two from the fly-leaves of his Bible beginning "It is well to" and "Who cares for the man who is right?" and one from the front of a volume of "Great God Brown" by Eugene O'Neill owned by Lindsay's niece Catharine Wakefield, beginning "The butterflies came in," each with autograph notes by Lindsay's sister Olive Lindsay Wakefield. Also, printed pamphlet celebrating Lindsay including his poem "On the Building of Springfield" with an autograph note from Olive to Norman Corwin on the verso.
mssHM 82027-82030
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Rare Books
"Smith melds an array of influences - from the French Symbolists to W. H. Auden and Wallace Stevens - into his own unmistakable voice, moving powerfully from the compressed, dark lyrics of his pre-World War II poetry ("Quail in Antumn") to experiments with a long, free-verse line in the 1960's ("The Tin Can"). Here are memorable lyrics that capture the horror of World War II ("Dark Valentine: War Poems") and hilarious light verse ("The Tall Poets") that exhibits the wit that has enlivened even Smith's darkest works. Previously uncollected recent poems reveal the poet's tremendous range, as he moves from discussing the ironies of age in "The Shipwreck" to forging the dramatic and moving intensity of "The Cherokee Lottery," which deals with the forced removal of American Indian tribes east of the Mississippi."--Book jacket.
619593
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Rare Books
"Here at last is Pauli Murray's powerful poem, 'Dark Testament,' and forty-nine other of her poems, collected between two covers. Virtually hidden for 22 years while its author pursued her destiny as a civil rights and women's rights champion and, at the same time as an attorney and professor of law, 'Dark Testament' speaks so eloquently of the plight of black Americans that it might have been composed yesterday. Dr. Murray won her badge of honor as a civil rights activist in the Forties -- long before the Freedom Rides -- when she was arrested and jailed in the South for refusing to be segregated and when she led student sit-ins in all-white restaurants in the nation's capital. As a poet she was a protegé of Stephen Vincent Benét and was encouraged by Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Jean Starr Untermeyer, Lillian Smith, and many others. The title poem of this volume inspired Morris Milgram, who wrote the introduction, to start a career of developing genuinely integrated housing. Now over 13,000 people live in open housing owned or built by firms Milgram organized; and this might never have begun but for Pauli Murray's 'Dark Testament,' which taught Milgram that the ghetto perpetuates black unfreedom"--From back of dust jacket.
657222
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Rare Books
This volume brings together all of Kenneth Rexroth's shorter poems from 1920 to the present, including a group of new poems written since the publication of Natural Numbers, drawn from seven earlier books. Among the American poets of the generation that came to prominence in the Forties, Kenneth Rexroth has been notable both for the independence of his personal voice and for his accessibility to the tradition of international avant-garde literature. He began writing and publishing in magazines at fifteen. His earliest work was personal and concrete, much like that of the Imagists. In his twenties he wrote in the disassociative style--sometimes called "literary cubism "--developed by Mallarmé, Apollinaire, and Reverdy. This was not free association, but the conscious disassociation and recombination of the elements of the poem to achieve the highest possible level of significance. With his later books Rexroth moved back to a direct and classically simple form of personal statement. In this period he wrote the great nature poems, the love poems, and the contemplative lyrics that have established his reputation as one of the most important American poets.
660949
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Rare Books
Wendell Berry is a writer of great clarity and sureness. His love of language and his care for its music are matched only by his fidelity to the subjects he has written of during his first twenty-five years of work : land and nature, the family and community, tradition as the groundwork for life and culture. His graceful elegies sit easily alongside lyrics of humor and biting satire. Husbandman and husband, philosopher and Mad Farmer, he writes of values that endure. His vision is one of hope and memory, of determination and faithfulness. For this volume Wendell Berry has collected nearly two hundred poems from his previous eight collections. --from back cover.
660862