The Object of an Affair and other poems - printer's proofs

Julian SYMONS

Edité par Edinburgh: Tragara Press, 1974

A propos de cet article

Printer's proofs: folded sheets of Sheepstor handmade paper, unsewn, lacking only pp. [3, author's note], [4, blank], [12-13, title poem: misprinted as blank, then title-page], [21-2, blanks], but with three extra title-pages (p. [1]), none with the copyright notice on p. [2] or the limitation page [23], one with p. [13] on the title-page verso, and p. [11] in place of the limitation page. The published edition was limited to 90 numbered copies, of which 25 were printed on brown Sheepstor specially bound and signed by the author.

The first of several titles by Julian Symons to come from the Tragara Press, in the same year as the first by his old friend Roy Fuller, An Old War: both authors introduced to Alan Anderson by George Sims, to whom Symons had given an early boost as a bookseller in unleashing him on the collections of his brother A.J.A. Symons. "A fiery elephant he called himself ['Fiery Elephant (B.S. Johnson 1933-1973)']. This creature roared / And stamped, trunk waving, rooting out imaginary / Enemies in the literary undergrowth, / Taking on everybody, Johnson v The World. / And Johnson could take punishment, my, see that elephant / Stop a publisher's rejection, both barrels, and come out / Bellowing with pain. And sorrow. But mostly anger. / Elephant Johnson never took a count. / Nobody chopped him down. / He chopped himself down. // But also but also / Looked for friendship and offered it, / Felt for young people, old people, all misfits, / Liked the companionship of pubs, / Watched Chelsea with eagerness, a South Londoner / ('We live in the North, so my boy Steve / Supports Arsenal, but I'm trying / To get him out of it'). The questioning eyes / Asked for something, the clumsy hands / Made inexplicit gestures, but the fiery / Elephant turned them into theories / About not telling lies in his fictions. / Who wants to tell lies in his fictions? / Is what elephants remember the truth? / These are never the problems of art."

Also present, on a different stock, are four extra poems printed rectos only, "All Things Cut Down", "A Square of Blue", "Recovering" and "The Little Winter", all poems of aching regret about the author's daughter, Sarah Louise Symons (1948-1976). "The little winter comes in June she wrote in a childhood poem [aged six - published by Tambimittu's Poetry London-New York, 1956]. / In one of the last photographs she sits upright on a sofa, unsmiling. // That was in March. On the bus from New York / She was hunched, face turned away, staring into darkness. // Her last birthday, September, staggered up our stairs, / Two litre bottles in basket. Again unsmiling. // But also I remember / Another autumn in Amherst, gold and brown, gay among shining leaves. // And also and also / Beaches in Kent, Cornwall, Spain, her endless enjoyment. // And homes made everywhere / Kilburn and Chiswick and Mousehole, a houseboat at Twickenham, // A flat in Wooton [sic] Rivers: / All enjoyed not endured, lack of money dismissed // With a smile and an elegant wave of the hand. / What did it matter? She stretched out arms to life, embraced it // Until the little winter came."

In 1979 the Tragara Press printed for the author 50 copies of Seven Poems for Sarah.

N° de réf. du vendeur 32M100490

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Object of an Affair and other poems - printer's proofs
• Éditeur: Edinburgh: Tragara Press
• Date de parution: 1974
• Reliure: No Binding
• État de l'article: Fine
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Proofs