PONSOT, Marie True Minds San Fransisco, City Lights Books, 1956
Small 4vo. Covers with grey template with pasted white title label ; pp. [2] 5-32; Corner crease on rear wrapper; Wrappers slightly toned with stain to upper left hand corner of front wrapper; otherwise very good.
First Edition
"Enough of expressionist flowers lions and wheat/ Let us consider our separate needs/ Here in this beautiful city of delicate surfaces/ That a touch makes bleed" (Take My Disproportionate Desire).
Marie Ponsot managed to create her fierce body of work whilst singelhandedly raising seven children. True Minds was Marie Ponsot's first published book and fifth in Lawrence Ferlinghetti's The Pocket Poet Series which aimed "to present, in inexpensive editions, the broadest view of contemporary poetry".
Ponsot often chose to write in complex formats that could have well proven too restrictive for some as an outlet; the villanelle, a nineteen line poetic form, and the sestina, a challeging french verse form. Yet in an interview with The New Yorker in 1999, she remarked of her attitude towards structure; "“The forms create an almost bodily pleasure in the poet. What you’re doing is trying to discover. They are not restrictive. They pull things out of you. They help you remember". Marie Ponsot also maintained her catholic faith throughout the entireity of her life and this often seeps into the heart of her writing.
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