A plea for free love
FERLINGHETTI, Lawrence. To Fuck is to Love Again (Kylie Eleison Kerista). Or the Situation in the West Followed by a Modest Proposal. New York: Fuck You. 1965.
4to. Original pink and red wrappers title lettered in black; staple-bound and printed on multi-coloured construction paper; wrappers and contents slightly creased; otherwise very good.
First edition, first printing.
In 1951 Ferlinghetti settled in San Francisco, opening the City Lights Pocket Book Shop in 1953. It quickly became a gathering place for the city’s literary avant-garde. His poem argues for the power of a love without constraint: "I'm trying to make it holy I'm trying to make it socially acceptable…for to fuck is to love again…..and there is a time to hate and a time to love so let's everybody love it up in the sun which won't burn on forever" (p. 6).
Ed Sander's was the editor of one of the staple names in the "Mimeo Revolution", Fuck You: A Magazine of the Arts. Consisting of 13 issues between 1962-1965, Fuck You argued for the use of free love as a political weapon and subsequently printed erotic poetry in a multitude of strains. Ferlinghetti was responsible for the publication of Allen Ginsberg's Howl in 1959 for which he was arrested and subsequently brought to an infamous obscenity trial.
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