Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments, 1916 First Edition, Poetry Hoax
$200
Out of stock
Description
[ FAMOUS POETRY HOAX SPECTRA ]
Knish, Anne [Ficke, Arthur] and Morgan, Emanuel [Bynner, Witter]. Spectra: A Book of Poetic Experiments. Mitchell Kennerley. New York. 1916. First Edition.
Created as a drunken hoax mocking modern poetry , Spectra is a manifesto and small collection of poems which kicked off the fake-poetry movement, “Spectrism”. In their mid-thirties, poets and critics Witter Banner and Arthur Davison Ficke went through ten bottles of whiskey over ten days in a hotel room creating a fictional poetry school that they felt exemplified all the problems with what they felt to be the experimental and unaesthetic nature of popular modern poetry. The book sold wildly and earned fans like William Carlos Williams and others before the pair admitted to the hoax in 1918. Unfortunately for both poets, the joke was on them. As one critic in the Little Review wrote, “I confess to a deep ignorance of the nature of the hoax. If a man changes his name and writes better stuff, why does that make the public so ridiculous?” Despite decades of trying, Bynner and Ficke would never write anything as popular in their “real” work as they did with this parody.
Small octavo. Original printed grey boards with title, authors, and image in black. Ex-library copy with UC Santa Cruz Library plates on front pastedown and back free endpaper. Former owners inscription on first free endpaper. Original poem by former owner dated 1918-1919 on back free endpaper. Good condition.
If you liked this book, you might also like this first edition of Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book.
