THE CHARM

I've written a bit about Robert Creeley's The Charm on the Cuneiform blog in the past. I should note that this handsome book from Walter Hamady's Perishable Press Ltd. was published in 1964, followed by Divisions & other early poems  in 1967. The Charm is a collection of uncollected poems from the beginning of Creeley's publishing history, and Divisions is a short collection of poems that were overlooked when The Charm was edited. These two books were later combined in a trade edition issued by Donald Allen's Four Seasons Foundation in 1969, and Calder & Boyers later published a similar version in the UK in 1971. When I bought my copy of The Charm there were very few available, but there now seems to be no shortage and the price has dropped significantly. Same goes for Divisions, tho that appears to remain scarce. But the rarest, perhaps of any Creeley edition, is Words which was certainly one of Hamady's earliest books. Robert Runser was a friend and teacher of Hamady, who let him use his press in Michigan to print an edition limited to 30. As I recall, this was a year or two before Hamady moved to Wisconsin and set up shop. I obtained a photocopy of Words (not to be confused with the trade edition of the same name issued by Scribner's in 1967) from the Detroit Public Library some years ago—no idea where that is now, but I think it was set in Caslon old style. One copy currently listed online for 4k.

—KS