Kaddish for Naomi Ginsberg, 1894-1956, with two other related poems, White Shroud and Black Shroud
San Francisco: The Arion Press, 1992. Kitaj, R.B. Limited Edition. Hardcover. No. 196 of 200, folio size, 63 pp., signed by Allen Ginsberg and R.B. Kitaj. Fine. Item #CNJL600
Written three years after the death of his mother, Ginsberg focused on a cryptic note left to him by her, the mother who had been hospitalized for mental illness for many years, and used that as his inspiration for the poem written in her honour. The volume contains, at Ginsberg's suggestion, two related poems that also relate to his mother.
Bound into the volume, facing each other, are two lithographs by R.B. Kitaj, portraits of Allen and Naomi Ginsberg, picturing them both at about age 30; the lithograph of Naomi is signed in pencil by Kitaj.
___DESCRIPTION: Bound in two colours of imported Japanese cloth, black with tan fibers and greyed blueish green, black lettering on the front, binding design unusual with a flap enclosing the fore-edge that folds into the front cover; cream endpapers, fore- and bottom edges uncut, copy number and Allen Ginsberg's signatures on the half-title page in pencil, his signature with his initials below enclosed in a circle, lithographs bound in after the introduction and before the poems with a tissue guard between the two prints; large quarto size (approximately 12.25" tall), pagination: (1)-18 being the preliminary pages and the introduction, sectional title for the lithographs (19), the two lithographs (20 and 21), blank (22), sectional title for the poems (23), 24-62 being the three poems, colophon (63), Imprint type hand-set, on T.H. Saunders mould-made paper. Prospectus loosely laid in.
___CONDITION: Fine, prospectus also fine.
___CITATION: Arion Press Bibliography, no. 38.
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Price: $750.00