GAUDETE

New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1977. First Edition. With illustrations to the dust-jacket by Leonard Baskin. 8vo, publisher’s original linen backed terra-cotta paper covered boards, the spine lettered in black. With the pictorial dustjacket illustrated and printed in red and black. 200 pp. A well preserved copy, the book clean and tight with some light mellowing to the spine panel, the dustjacket with a bit of light age mellowing and a bit of evidence of shelving or use. FIRST EDITION. It was said at publication, that the book’s “eloquence, passion and power are unmistakable. It is the impressive single work produced by an English poet in this decade.” The work is a “magical fable which in its intensity breaks through the ludicrous ordinary into the intense abnormal.” “GAUDETE is a completely singular work that cannot be read with the usual literary preconceptions. It is a genuine breakthrough in its abandonment of conventional poetic technique. What emerges here is the real bone of art--a leap of mind from one of the best poets in the world.”