15.

BERMAN, Wallace.

SEMINA TWO (Los Angeles/San Francisco: nd. [c. December 1957]).

8vo. Cardstock cover, with Charles Brittin’s photograph of Suzi Hicks mounted to upper panel. Brown paper sheets (28pp.), staple-bound and “handset with miscellaneous available type & papers”. Blank inside front cover with handwritten letter “R” at upper left (usually seen blank). The illustrations are mostly halftones, probably printed using offset lithography.

This copy has been SIGNED by contributor John Altoon (“J. Altoon”) in red ink to the verso of his tipped-in folding illustration (sometimes seen signed in pencil), and by Charles Brittin (“Cover photo: Chas Brittin”) along the upper edge of the inner rear wrapper, also in red ink (sometimes seen set in type).

As well as Altoon and Brittin, this issue contains contributions by Berman (his trademark slogan, “Art is Love is God”, is printed on a label mounted to the final page), including under his pseudonyms ‘Pantale Xantos’ and ‘Marcia Jacobs’; Hermann Hesse; Paul Éluard; Jack Anderson; Marjorie Cameron; Jean Cocteau; Zack Walsh; Eric Cashen; Lynn Trocchi; Idell T. Romero; J.B. May; Charles Baudelaire; Charles Bukowski (“Mine”); Peder Carr; Judson Crews; John Reed; Lewis Carroll; David Meltzer; Marion Grogan; Paul Valéry; Walter Hopps; Alexander Trocchi (the first published extract from “Cain’s Book”); Michael (as Mike) McClure; and Rabindranath Tagore. The images include two reproductions of photographs by Berman of Robert Alexander shooting heroin; manipulated photographs by Lewis Carroll (first noticed by Berman in the May 1942 issue of View); and Walter Hopps’s image of a dead shark.

This issue was the last produced in Los Angeles, but copies were also distributed from San Francisco (Berman moved there in December 1957 following his conviction on obscenity charges earlier in the year). The change of location resulted in two states of Semina Two, one with a notice announcing that Berman will continue working “from locations other than this city of degenerate angels” and one without the notice. The priority is uncertain. This is the variant without the “degenerate angels” notice on the back cover. As with every issue, Semina Two was mailed or given out by hand to members of Berman’s circle or people he admired (the exception being Semina Three, copies of which were sold in City Lights Bookstore).

An excellent copy, with partial offsetting or toning to some of the pastedowns, only minimal toning to the card cover, and just a very short hairline crease to the upper right corner of the upper wrapper.

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