Naked Poetry: Recent American Poetry in Open Forms

Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1969. Cloth. Near Fine/Near Fine. A gorgeous copy (the nicest this bookseller has seen) of the 1969 stated 1st printing of the uncommon hardback edition of this seminal collection of "poetic exploration". Clean and Near Fine in a crisp, price-intact ($8.50), Near Fine dustjacket, with just a touch of very light soiling to the rear panel. Thck octavo, representing some of the leading "post-War poets and literary iconoclasts" of the day, such as Kenneth Rexroth, Theodore Roethke, Kenneth Patchen, Weldon Kees, John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Denise Levertov, Robert Bly, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, W.S. Merwin, Galway Kinnell, (truncated) Sylvia Plath, Gary Snyder, etc. From the front dustjacket flap: "The new men abandoned strict rhyme, meter and stanza form to experiment with images, rhymes and syntax. They unnerved editors, confounded critics, took poetry back into the streets and the places of confrontation, and in the process forged a new and powerful idiom in American letters. 'Naked Poetry' brings together some of the best work of this continuing revolution (Inventory #: 18141)