SIGNED BY TROCCHI
[ed. PATTEN, Brian] Underdog 6. Liverpool: Underdog Publications. 1965.
8vo. Black stapled wrappers with a poem by Heather Holdon to cover and photograph by Reg Cox; unpaginated; fine.
First edition, signed by Alexander Trocchi.
In the 1960s, Brian Patten presided over the Liverpool poetry scene alongside influential contemporaries such as Roger McGough. Underdog was Patten's own poetry magazine which he both edited and produced.
This poem was written and signed by Alexander Trocchi just five years after the release of his controversial and seminal novel, Cain’s Book. Cain's Book had previously been banned, and most of Trocchi’s output, mostly pornographic in nature, had been published by the Olympia Press, usually under the pen names Frances Lengel and Carmencita de las Lunas. Christened the preeminent "Scottish Beat", his writing was heavily influenced by the New York and San Francisco ‘Beat scene’ and 1960s counterculture, placing emphasis on nonconformity, societal alienation and drug experimentation.
Underdog 6 features works by Robert Creeley, Anslem Hollo and Patten himself, to name but a few.
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