Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends
Fairfax, CA: Taylor Street Press, 1983. First edition. 64 pp. Original printed wrappers. Kay Ryan was U.S. Poet Laureate from 2008 to 2010, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2011 for her new and selected poems The Best of It, and in September 2011 was named a MacArthur Fellow. Her first book was self-published with the assistance of a subscription of friends and had almost no distribution. (Although she has not renounced the book, in 2007 she commented, "There is a certain onus on publishing one's own book. So, I wasn't terribly proud to be doing that. It was the act of a desperate woman, and it did me not a shred of good.") A native Californian, her successes came fairly late in life. She and her late partner Carol Adair taught at the College of Marin for over thirty years, and she used her laureate appointment to champion and advocate for community colleges. Signed by Ryan on the title-page. Fine copy. Item #2069
Price: $850.00