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20.
SEMINA 8 (LA: 1963).
8vo. Cardstock cover, tape-bound at spine, with two tie-holes to upper and lower covers. Pasted-on press photograph to front cover of the teenaged ‘Lipstick Killer’, William Heirens, making the forced confessions of three murders in Chicago in 1946, altered by Dean Stockwell to depict him drawing an Iron Cross. Aleph stamped in black ink to lower left corner of back cover.
Joanne Kyger’s copy, with the small bookplate of Joanne and Jack Boyce (who married in 1966) affixed to the upper left corner inside the front cover. Both Kyger and Berman moved from Southern California to San Francisco in 1957 and corresponded with each other in the following years.
Complete with all 16 inserts, each printed offset in different colours on variously sized cardstock or paper, with some photographic prints, eight of them with Berman’s handwritten initial (or initials) in black ink crediting the contributor (six of them state ‘W.’, referring to himself). Inserts contained in a tipped-in paper pocket, as follows:
i) A.A. (Antonin Artaud), untitled poetic fragment with found photograph;
ii) Cameron, “June 2, 1962”, poem and drawing;
iii) R.D. (Robert Duncan), “Increasing” (poem), and Berman’s altered photograph of a nude Duncan floating in a pool in Phoenix ;
iv) K.D. (Kirby Doyle), an excerpt from “Motorcycle Poem”, and altered photograph by Wallace Berman;
v) John Reed, untitled drawing, and “Fongmother”, a poem in Chinese characters;
vi) W.H. (William House), untitled drawing;
vii) Jess (uncredited), photographic collage (image of a cat holding a briefcase leaving a Turkish prison);
viii) J.K. (Jerry Katz), untitled poem, and Wallace Berman photograph of raised middle finger;
ix) M.M. (Michael McClure), “Ghost Tantra”, and found photograph of woman nursing baby and bear cub in log cabin;
x) I.T.R. (Aya Tarlow), untitled poem, and photographic collage by Patricia Jordan (female servants dining juxtaposed with a large human skeleton);
xi) L.R. (Elias Romero), untitled poem, and untitled drawing by L.F. (Llyn Foulkes);
xii) W. (Wallace Berman), “Wardell Dead”, photographic collage with text;
xiii) W. (Wallace Berman), collage (Lenny Bruce’s head beaten by policemen with butterflies in his hair);
xiv) W. (Wallace Berman), photographic collage (a depiction of boxer Benny ‘the Kid’ Peret on the night he died in the ring in 1962, with image of flying eagle above his head);
xv) J.W. (John Wieners), “Le Chariot” (poem), and W. (Wallace Berman), photographic collage (chariot and Ray Charles);
xvi) Z.W. (Zack Walsh), “Geography” (poem), and Wallace Berman, altered found photograph from a Hollywood fan magazine.
Lacks string tie; trivial wear to tail of spine tape; all inserts Fine or Near Fine (minor edge creasing to Duncan insert). Overall, an excellent copy of one of the rarest issues of Semina (149 copies).