GINSBERG, Allen. The Gates of Wrath.

Ginsberg at East Hill Farm

GINSBERG, Allen. The Gates of Wrath. Bolinas: Grey Fox Press. 1972.

8vo. Publisher’s oatmeal cloth, lettered in red to spine; pp. [12], 56, [1 (limitation page)], [5 (blank)]; near fine; with an eleven-line prose poem in Ginsberg’s hand headed ‘Clear Night’ to verso of first blank page ‘Allen Ginsberg | his copy’ also in the author’s hand (see below).

Ginsberg's own copy of the first, limited, hardback edition, one of six lettered copies; inscribed by the author with a touching ten-line manuscript prose poem.

In the mid-1960s, the ‘back-to-the-land’ movement prompted many countercultural groups to leave the cities and establish rural communes, embracing a simpler, more ecological way of living. Against this background, Ginsberg purchased East Hill Farm, a seventy-acre rural retreat near Cherry Valley, New York State, in 1968.

The verso of the first blank page in this intriguing copy of The Gates of Wrath: Rhymed Poems 1948–1952 bears the inscription ‘Allen Ginsberg | his copy | Rc’d 8 September 1973’, above which he has added – probably at a later date – ‘To Tom’. The main body of the inscription consists of an eleven-line unpublished prose poem headed ‘Clear Night’ (accompanied by a doodle of a crescent moon and a star), which offers an intimate glimpse of domestic life at East Hill Farm (the final word, ‘Midnight’, edges into the lower corner of the title page):

Visiting Charlie Plymell,
tomato pepper pickle potato harvest
downtown Cherry Valey [sic].

Bonnie & Ray Bremser healthy
in warm clean livingroom with iron stove
Bonnie in black velvet cloak-shirt

Julius in attick in bed pensive and calm
Peter downstairs reading Prisoners South Vietnam Con Son Jail
Me in my God-fostered rooms in Gaslight at Midnight.

Charles and Pamela Plymell, together with Josh Norton, ran Cherry Valley Editions, publishing work by Ginsberg and other Beat writers. Ginsberg had bought the farm partly in the hope of removing Peter Orlovsky (‘downstairs reading’) from New York and the dependence on Methedrine that had come to dominate his life; Julius was his brother. Bonnie and Ray Bremser, with their child, lived with Ginsberg and Orlovsky.

The Gates of Wrath was issued in wrappers in February 1973, the hardback edition following in September of the same year in an edition of one hundred copies. This copy is lettered ‘C’, identifying it as one of six overrun copies beyond the stated limitation.

Morgan A28.a2.1; for Ginsberg at East Hill Farm see Miles, Ginsberg: Beat Poet (2010).

SKU: 2124275