THE SHAPE OF THE JOURNEY: NEW AND COLLECTED POEMS.

HARRISON, JIM.

(Port Townsend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 1998). 234 x 157 mm. (9 1/8 x 6 1/8"). xii, [2], 463, [1] pp., [1] leaf. No. 29 OF 250 NUMBERED COPIES (and 26 lettered copies).

Original quarter buckram over teal paper boards, upper cover with the name of the author over a small blind-stamped design, smooth spine with printed lettering. Housed in a matching buckram and teal paper slipcase by the Campbell-Logan bindery. SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR on the half-title. Spine lettering very slightly faded, otherwise a near mint copy.

This is a signed copy of the collected verse of novelist and poet Jim Harrison (1937-2016), with a group of new poems at the end of the book to which the author ascribes the greatest importance. In the words of the Poetry Foundation, Harrison wrote "free-verse, imagistic poetry, which often explores human and animal drives set against an unforgiving natural world." He writes in the introduction to "The Shape of the Journey" that the poems here reflect "the portion of my life that means the most to me. I've written a goodly number of novels and novellas but they sometimes strike me as extra, burly flesh on the true bones of my life." The volume concludes with "Geo-Bestiary," a collection of 34 new poems appearing here for the first time, which Harrison describes as "a rather wild-eyed effort to resume contact with reality after writing a long novel that had drawn me far from the world I like to call home." Our copy is from the library of Laure-Anne Bosselaar (b. 1943) and her husband Kurt Brown (1944-2013). Bosselaar is a Belgian-American poet, translator, and editor who has published numerous works of poetry in multiple languages, including five collections of her own works. She has received various prizes and recognitions (Pushcart, Isabella Gardner, Breadloaf) and was named Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara in 2019. Sometimes publishing jointly with Bosselaar, Brown was also a prolific poet and editor of anthologies, as well as the founder and first director of the Aspen Writer's Conference, playing a pivotal role in shaping its early vision and establishing Aspen as a literary center. (ST20338-119)

Price: $175.00