Erotic Poems
Berkeley: Bern Porter, 1946. First edition. 52 pp. Publisher’s paper-covered patterned boards. Very slight edgewear to boards, tiny spot to front board, else near fine.
Lamantia was the bridge between the Beat Generation and the Surrealists: he was mentored by Rexroth, and André Breton saluted him as a “voice that rises once in a hundred years.” Lamantia was an assistant editor at View magazine in New York under Breton, Ernst, and Ford. He published this, his first book, at age 19. He later returned to his hometown of San Francisco, where he was one of the readers at the famous Six Gallery reading where Ginsberg first read “Howl.” Ferlinghetti said of him, “Philip was a visionary like Blake, and he really saw the whole world in a grain of sand.” A fragile production, rare in this condition. Item #2622
Price: $1,250.00