Meditations In An Emergency First Edition - Frank O'hara - Bauman Rare Books

Meditations In An Emergency

Frank O'HARA

Item#: 108243 We're sorry, this item has been sold

Meditations In An Emergency

"I CAN'T EVEN ENJOY A BLADE OF GRASS UNLESS I KNOW THERE'S A SUBWAY HANDY": FIRST EDITION OF FRANK O'HARA'S MEDITATIONS IN AN EMERGENCY

O'HARA, Frank. Meditations In An Emergency. New York: Grove Press, (1957). Octavo, original gray wrappers printed in black.

First trade edition of this rare early work by one of the leaders of the New York School of poetry.

"Although [O'Hara, 1926-1966] published more than a hundred poems in scattered magazines and in a few limited editions, there was no sizable representative collection of poems published in his lifetime… there were only two slight volumes—Second Avenue (1960) and Lunch Poems (1965)— readily available; other books were printed in editions of less than five hundred copies…and thus were inaccessible to most serious readers…O'Hara was from the start a skilled and knowledgeable poet, well aware, if not always respectful, of the long tradition of the craft…He left a record of an active intelligence as well as a body of poetry that challenged the norms of poetic form and reengaged the activity of creating with the normal events of the daily enterprise" (Butterick and Bertholf). Meditations In An Emergency is O'Hara's third collection—following A City Winter and Other Poems (1952) and Oranges (1953)—with 52 poems, including the title poem, "To the Harbormaster," "On Rachmaninoff's Birthday," "For James Dean," and "Sleeping on the Wing." Published the same year as a Special Edition of 15 numbered hardbound copies with original frontispiece drawing by Grace Hartigan and a Limited Edition of 75 hardbound copies. One of only approximately 900 copies printed, according to Smith A3a. Owner signature to half title: "John Halverson," Professor of English and Comparative Literature: Berkeley, Princeton and Santa Cruz.

Slight sunning to spine, otherwise fine in original fragile wrappers.

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Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes. Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process; aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however.
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