ROBERT CREELEY LIBRARY

 
Joel Oppenheimer & Robert Rauschenberg.
THE DANCER.

Jargon, 1951.
Folded card, in the scarce original printed envelope.
5 3/4 x 7 inches.

Jargon 2. Edition: 150 copies. Printed by Oppenheimer at The Sad Devil Press at Black Mountain College. The poet's first book, an early graphic work by Rauschenberg, and the second publication from the Jargon Society. Envelope is mildly shelf-worn. The card is very clean with crisp corners; about fine with a very minor rumple to top corner. As with Jargon 1 by Jonathan Williams (below), this item is lacking from all but a very few of the best institutional modern literature collections in the U.S.

Reading through the 3rd Robert Creeley Library list tonight was like the last remarkable chapter in an odyssey written in alphabetical order. It coheres; the company comes together in a reader's library (but perhaps more so in a writer's library). Not just the books, but the inscriptions, letters, poems, and photographs that were placed into them. Scrapbooks within books. A biography and bibliography.

It is inspiring to see the care and mindfulness  Steve Clay has given to Bob's library. Check it out online at Granary Books
- KS

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