GINSBERG, Allen. Kaddish and other poems 1958-1960. San Francisco: City Lights Books. 1961.
Small 4to. Black and White iconic card wrappers; pp. [6] 7-99; ad. [5]; slight fading on front and back wrappers; scuffing on rear spine fading title lettering; otherwise very good.
First edition, Pocket Poet Series Number Fourteen. The first issue, priced $1.50 to lower cover, with 10 lines of blurb and note of Villiers publication address to bottom of last page.
"Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village" begins Allen Ginsberg's Kaddish dedicated to his mother, Naomi, who died in 1956, two years before this publication.
Kaddish refers to the Jewish mourning prayer and is not only a reflection of the forever estrangement caused by his mother's passing but also his own estrangement with his religious faith.
Heralded as possibly his finest work, Kaddish was first published in this The City Lights Pocket Poets Series edition and still continues to impact generations of readers.
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