Boston: Good Gay Poets, 1977. First edition. No. 52 of 75 copies in the "limited hardcover edition" signed by Weiss and Blake to limitation page at rear; from a total edition of 200 hardcover and 1000 softcover copies. [200]pp; b&w illus. Illustrated tan paper over boards; no jacket, as issued. Better than very good, with light tapping to top corners, some mild spotting along fore-edge of rear board. This copy additionally signed and inscribed by Weiss and Blake to front endpaper: "4/5/85 for Michèle call your day each time anew Love Ruth & Paul." Signed first edition of perhaps the densest and most complex book by German-born jazz poet ruth weiss (1928-2020), noted as a member of the Beat Generation and for a body of work marked by her non-linear and meticulously pared-down approach to poetic language; a forty-day exploration of the desert as a space of transformation both literal and metaphorical; "the desert / that by its very barren-ness / holds all possibles." With black-and-white reproductions throughout of line drawings by weiss's partner, artist Paul Blake (1945-2014).
