Persecuted Poets Series Number One
Cleveland: Ghost Press, 1967. Stamped. Saddle-stapled in wraps, with printed paper slip laid down on inside front cover. [8] pp. 5 1/2 x 7 in. Very good, with front cover detached from lower staple. Item #7401
One of 150 copies of this artists’ book produced by rjs, shortly before his imprisonment in 1967.
rjs was a concrete poet and publisher, who ran Ghost Press alongside d.a. levy and James Lowell. rjs and Lowell were both charged with publishing and distributing obscene work along with levy; while Lowell and levy’s charges were dropped, rjs served four and a half months in prison.
The book was made with ink stamps in a remarkably resourceful and rebellious effort at concrete poetry, as the police had seized levy’s mimeograph machine. The main text features only one line, “my brain is bleeding like Niagara,” broken into many pages.
The final page, printed on a different, thin paper stock, reads:
“RJS’ new address for the next six months:
Workhouse
Cooley Institutions
4051 Northfield Fd
Warrensville, Ohio.”.
Price: $500.00