Tapping White Cane Solitude by Franz Wright (8 results)

String-bound card. Condition: As Described. No Jacket. Limited numbered and signed edition of 2. Tapping the White Cane of Solitude by Franz Wright Coarse cream-coloured string-bound card, blind-stamped on front cover. Measures around 6 1/2" x 9 1/2" x 1/8" (166mm x 241mm x 4mm). Printed by the Triskelion Press, Oberlin, Ohio, 1976. Unpaginated but consists of two purple endpaper leaves and 14 cream-coloured leaves, all of coarse paper. First edition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet's first book, one of a limited numbered and signed edition of 250 copies, this one being numbered 186 in the author's own hand and signed on the colophon at the rear. This copy is particularly fascinating and appears to be unique from other copies for sale in that the author himself has scored out nearly half the stanzas of the final poem 'The Return' in black marker and handwritten in an alternative ending to the poem. The seller does not know of any other copies containing this feature. Heavy toning around edges of binding. Some marking, scuffing and edge-wear, with bumped corners and some small indentations to bottom outer corners of covers and pages. Binding robust. Contains previous owner signature to recto of front free endpaper. Page surfaces generally clean. See pictures for further information. About the author:Franz Wright was born in Vienna, Austria and grew up in the Northwest, the Midwest, and California. He earned a BA from Oberlin College in 1977. His collections of poetry include The Beforelife (2001); God's Silence (2006); Walking to Martha's Vineyard, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004; Wheeling Motel (2009); Kindertotenwald (2011); and F (2013). In his precisely crafted, lyrical poems, Wright addresses the subjects of isolation, illness, spirituality, and gratitude. Of his work, he has commented, "I think ideally, I would like, in a poem, to operate by way of suggestion."Critic Helen Vendler wrote in the New York Review of Books, "Wright's scale of experience, like Berryman's, runs from the homicidal to the ecstatic . His best forms of or originality: deftness in patterning, startling metaphors, starkness of speech, compression of both pain and joy, and a stoic self-possession with the agonies and penalties of existence." Langdon Hammer, in the New York Times Book Review, wrote of God's Silence: "In his best poems, Wright grasps at the 'radiantly obvious thing' in short-lined short lyrics that turn and twist down the page. The urgency and calculated unsteadiness of the utterances, with their abrupt shifts of direction, jump-cuts and quips, mime the wounded openness of a speaker struggling to find faith."Wright received a Whiting Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. He translated poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke and Rene Char; in 2008 he and his wife, Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright, co-translated a collection by the Belarusian poet Valzhyna Mort, Factory of Tears. He taught at Emerson College and other universities, worked in mental health clinics, and volunteered at a center for grieving children. His father was the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet James Wright. He died in 2015. [Source: Poetry Foundation] 14 leaves pp. n.

Soft cover. Condition: Fair. Dust Jacket Condition: Fair. 1st Edition. Aging around sides. Ex-Libris, labeled on inside cover as discard. Number 51 of 250, number written in by author. Signed. Moderate soiling on cover. Signed by Author(s).

First Edition; First Printing. 250 copies, sewn wraps , 9.5 x 6.5 inches. All edges lightly toned, a touch of offsetting rear cover, fine. Signed by Wright on colophon and inscribed by him on the title page.

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. #78 of 250 signed on colophon page. The first book by the late tortured poet. Sewn in white wrappers browning (inevitably) around the edges, especially on the back cover, and with a light 1/4" splotch on front. Signed by Author(s).

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. Wright's first book, published while still a student at Oberlin. This a presentation copy to John Logan, a friend of his father's (one of the Sixties poets gathered around Bly's magazine--Wright, Kinnell, Ignatow, Hall, Simpson, et al.). Inscribed to Logan, "whose many great poems I have admired for a long time, in thanks for your friendship, and in hope that you won't be too hard on these first misshapen efforts. Franz, March 1980." Also, Wright has crossed out the last eleven lines of one poem, and replaced them with four. Numbered (205 of 250) and signed on colophon page. Wrappers are discolored as usual, with a couple of spots of (Logan's?) coffee. Signed by Author(s).

9.5 x 6.5, wraps, unpag, covers a bit darkened. FIRST ED, ONE OF 250 NUMBERED COPIES, SIGNED BY AUTHOR.

First edition. First edition. Signed by Franz Wright twice, one at the rear colophon, and another time on the title page, where it is inscribed to the former owner, a "fellow lunatic." Unpaginated. Stringbound in publisher's wraps. Very Good with toning and light edge wear to wraps. The Pulitzer-winning poet's very first book, published in a limited edition of only 250 copies.

First edition, first impression. One of a limited edition of 250 numbered copies signed by the author on the limitation leaf. Additionally inscribed by the author on the title page, "For Pete, wherever you are, whoever, FW" and signed by the author over his printed name. Octavo. Original white wrappers, titles to upper wrapper in black and blind, red blanks. Wrappers a little rubbed and tanned to the spine and edges. A very good copy.