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The Desert Music and Other Poems

The Desert Music and Other Poems

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The Desert Music and Other Poems

by WILLIAMS, William Carlos

  • Used
  • Signed
  • first
Condition
A near-fine copy with light toning to the spine of the jacket; a few small smudges on the cloth
Seller
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Ardsley, New York, United States
Item Price
NZ$1,077.12
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About This Item

New York: Random House, 1954. A near-fine copy with light toning to the spine of the jacket; a few small smudges on the cloth. 8vo. 90 pages. Original pale green cloth; printed dust jacket. First edition of Williams's late lyrical masterwork, collecting five-years of work, and signed on the front free endpaper in his characteristic post-stroke shaky hand.

The Desert Music shows William's continued evolution of the variable foot, his triadic "step-down-line" developed in the 1940s (particularly in Paterson). He based the concept on the idea that each line corresponds exactly to one single breath unit - unlike cadence, the length of the line corresponds to a colon, so it is an isocolic rhythmical pattern. It was, in his estimation, the culmination of a lifelong search for a new form of prosody. Included in The Desert Music is the superb poem "The Orchestra" ending with one of the poet's greatest condensations of his belief in the power of the artist: "THE BIRDS TWITTER now anew / but a design / surmounts their twittering. / It is a design of a man / that makes them twitter. / It is a design." Wallace A38. (410054).

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Details

Bookseller
Riverrun Books & Manuscripts US (US)
Bookseller's Inventory #
410054
Title
The Desert Music and Other Poems
Author
WILLIAMS, William Carlos
Book Condition
Used - A near-fine copy with light toning to the spine of the jacket; a few small smudges on the cloth
Quantity Available
1
Publisher
Random House
Place of Publication
New York
Date Published
1954
Bookseller catalogs
Literature;

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About the Seller

Riverrun Books & Manuscripts

Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Biblio member since 2009
Ardsley, New York

About Riverrun Books & Manuscripts

Founded in 1978 and purchased in 2016 by Thomas Lecky, Riverrun specializes in fine, rare, and unusual books from all periods and genres. There are large holdings in art, photography, artists' books, fine printing, books about books, literature, signed and inscribed books, early printing, and Americana. We have thousands of books not listed online in these and many other fields, and are constantly sourcing new material from private collections and public auction. Please let us know if we can help you locate something not listed in our stock. We are members of the ABAA and are certified members of the Appraiser's Association of America.

Glossary

Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:

Cloth
"Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
Jacket
Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...
Spine
The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
First Edition
In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...

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