Speakeasy #1 - July, 1976

Iowa City: Privately Printed, 1976. Later Printing. Staple-bound. Clean pages, with no owners' marks, though with a small pencil ghost at the top of the first (title) page; the textured, white cover shows some gray smudging and modest toning, a light fold across the top right front, and a few small spots of rust just starting on the binding staples, but is otherwise attractive and well-kept. Unpaginated, approx. 80pp. "Speakeasy is a magazine of poems by members of the Poetry Class for People Over 60. The magazine and the class are funded by the Iowa State Arts Council as part of its Arts and Older Americans Program." Several of the poems were drafted on objects, e.g., a chopstick, a chair, etc. The final entry, by children's author Elizabeth Hajos, is particularly striking: "Now that I am so old / and wise / I know that / nothing is so. / Everything is otherwise.