Signed by Ginsberg
GINSBERG, Allen. The Fall of America: Poems of these states 1965-1971. San Francisco: City Lights Books. 1971.
Small 4to. Cream paper card wrappers with black title lettering; pp. [8], 188; slight toning to wrappers and spine; offsetting from previous loosely inserted slip; otherwise near fine.
First edition, signed by the author in 1981.
The Fall of America is a collection of poetry published by the iconic City Lights Books and a subsequent winner of the Annual U.S. National Book Award for Poetry. More fiercely political than his previous works, many of the poems express Ginsberg's condemnation of the war in Vietnam. Travel writing, autobiography and news bulletins are only a few influences and structures which inform this poetic odyssey. Seminal reference points from world history as well as personal history were originally recorded on a Uher Tape recorder which Ginsberg bought with the guidance of Bob Dylan.
The volume is dedicated to Walt Whitman, whose tone inspired Ginsberg's writing - a quote from the 1871 Democratic Vistas reads, "Many will say it is a dream … but I confidently expect a time when there will be seen … threads of manly friendship, fond and loving, pure and sweet, strong and life-long … I say democray infers such loving comradeship, as its most inevitable twin or counterpart, without which it would be incomplete, in vain, and incapable of perpetuating itself".
#2120454