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2.
Day By Day: Poems.
Athens, Greece: privately published, 1966. First edition. Lge. sq. 8vo. Wrps., pages bound by four staples. 68pp.
SIGNED and inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper to Hazel McKinley, painter, art collector and Peggy Guggenheim’s sister, in whose social circle Ansen moved during the years he spent living in Venice: “To Hazel with fond memories from Alan London March 23, 1966”.
Printed by Typographeion Mandalopoulou in Athens (the city Ansen moved to following his departure from Venice in 1963), and designed by Bronston Crutchfield (later referred to by Ansen as “an epenthetic houseguest” and “a hysterical queen [who] took it upon himself to destroy all my correspondence files”).
In addition, Ansen has written out his contact details on the rear endpaper: “Alan Ansen 19 Alopeheres St. Kolonghi Athens 139 Greece TEL 721403 (from Sept to June) otherwise Tangier Villa Mouniria Calle Magallanes 1 (from June to Sept)”.
William Burroughs first lived in Villa Muniria (spellings differ) in 1955, where he wrote “The Naked Lunch”, the manuscript of which Alan Ansen worked on, and he later shared a room there with Ian Sommerville, for whom Ansen wrote this volume’s dedicatory poem.
The book itself is divided into five sections, each part separated by a page of red paper stock, beginning with “The Peeper and His Paranoids” and ending with “Aleatory”, a complex exercise in Cagean composition. The second part includes a poem dedicated to Mikey Portman, who stayed with Burroughs at Villa Muniria (nicknamed by Burroughs Villa Delirium, “the original anything-goes joint”), and another is dedicated to Chester Kallman, the poet and librettist who collaborated with W.H. Auden (Ansen worked for Auden as his secretary and research assistant during the late 1940s).
Short tear to front free endpaper at top staple; upper right corner crease to title page; faint lower right corner creases to last few leaves; wrappers rubbed and lightly marked; o/w Very Good. Scarce.
Price:
£200.00
