Ode Eastern Cop by Walter Brown (2 results)

Paperback. Condition: Good with no dust jacket. First Edition. Color Illustrations; 8vo 8" - 9" tall; A scarce piece of Beat Poetry with Worldcat locating ony 3 copies. Width: 5.75" Height: 8.75" "The Three Penny Press, inspired by the abundant wealth of poetry on the lips of local barefoot bards, was conceived from the inky womb of a battered mimeograph machine to become the Boswell of our own "Don't give a damn" poets, in spite of the rough hewed appearance, and, at times, a primitivity of reproduction that verged on illegibility in our first books of poetry, they were well received by our readers, and we were delighted to find that appearance were not important. In as much as Los Angeles is not widely noted as a poetry mecca, our first publications were precipitated by whimsey, surprised at their reception, we undertook to find the reason for this apparent local renaissance; to further reinforce our discovery, other local poetry publications appeared almost simultaneously with ours. The advent of the "Beat Generation" and its penchant for combining poetry with music and pantomime, thus giving it greater scope and richness, accounts somewhat for its increased popularity. Fans of poetry and jazz, stimulated to buy and read poetry, have found that there is also music in the written book. Walter C. Brown, knows how to play that music, and he opens all stops. Brown, a local poet, snatched from bardic bliss by a call to arms, is now in the Navy stationed in San Francisco. His writing displays a virility that could easily rank poetry, along with boxing and bullfighting, among the "manly" arts." (Publisher's foreword) . Staple-bound in stiff wrappers. Booklet shows external wear, with chipping at corners and along edges. Both covers detached, rear cover displays annotations in ink. Pages are clean and without markings. Work contains full-page color illustrations, including one fold-out. Toning.

First Edition. Octavo. Staple-bound pictorial card wrappers; [10]pp; three color illustrations, one folding. Text printed by offset; the illustrations, by the artist Gene Maslow, are mimeographed in colors. Mild external toning and wear; Very Good. A beat-inflected, book-length poem intended (according to the publisher's preface) to be read to music. After a collaboration with Lenore Kandel ("Beat and Beatific," also Three Penny Press, 1959), this would appear to be the first and only solo collection of poetry by Walter C. Brown (b.1935), Stanford's 1957 "Class Poet" and a commissioned naval officer at the time this book was published. Brown would go on to become a well-known sports personality on the West Coast, broadcasting the first Los Angeles Lakers game after the team's relocation from Minneapolis in 1960. He was also a multi-sport radio color commentator, for teams including the San Francisco Giants and the Phoenix Suns. The Three Penny Press, a tiny venture operated out of an apartment in Studio City, California by husband and wife Grover and Rosie Haynes, specialized in publishing a small cadre of poets who frequented the "coffee houses in Los Angeles, Venice West, and San Francisco." Most notable among these was Lenore Kandel, whose first three books were published by the Hayneses. Like all of the Three Penny's productions, the current title is rare, with only four physical locations noted in OCLC.