![]() Its black-and-white cover photo of an outré Bruce Conner assemblage (see image directly below) neatly echoes the gathering of poems within, and relatively large-sized pages nicely create space for Lamantia’s sometimes long lines. Lamantia and his various publishers made beautiful books, and its great to read the poems as originally presented.įor example, there’s Destroyed Works (Auerhahn Press, 1962). Of course, the original books will always be worth having, if you can get them. ![]() As the saying goes, facts are facts.įirst, the Collected Lamantia includes all the poetry from Lamantia’s fourteen previous books. But even leaving that aside, this book deserves kudos. ![]() My exuberance ignites from my love and passion for Lamantia’s poetry. The editors very kindly mention this help in the book’s acknowledgments. I provided the editors – who I’ve each known for about 15 years – with a list of previously published but uncollected poems by Lamantia (and copies of some of them), as well as information about (and copies of) certain previously unpublished poems. This blog takes its name from a line in one of Lamantia’s poems, and each year on the anniversary of his birth (October 23, 1927) – hey, that’s today! – I’ve posted something here about him or his poetry.įinally, I played a small part in getting this Collected Poems into the world. We regularly talked and occasionally met until late 2001, when depression caused him to withdraw from social life (he died in 2005). Among other things, we were both native San Franciscans of Sicilian heritage. I also met Lamantia in 1998, and became a friend. I love too, particularly in the poems from the mid-1960s forward, the many erudite, esoteric, and/or hermetic allusions that stimulate and challenge the mind. His surreal, anti-rational images, and the associational play of the poems (they take me to “the kingdom of Elsewhere off the shores of Never More,” to quote a line from one of them). More to the point, I love Lamantia’s wild and free imagination. More than a decade ago, I compiled a chronological list of his published writings including appearances in magazines and anthologies – it numbers well over 250 items. I have collected and read (and read and read and read) Lamantia’s poetry for years. For me, this Collected is a dream – a DREAM – come true.
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