UNTITLED POEM, beginning "Riptide and forsitan. Tal vez, too. Vielleicht, perhaps." TYPED MANUSCRIPT (TMs). 66 lines, typed single-spaced on rectos of two leaves, ribbon copy with several revisions in the author's hand. The author muses -- as a writer -- on the subject of all the isolated ideas and fragmentary phrases that never coalesce into finished products -- yet never leave his memory either. "The greatest argument I know for sadistic deities / is that inspiration comes in pieces / and some of them never fit." The author displays a fierce sense of economy in the mechanics of his writing habits, cramming words in a tiny hand onto every square inch of paper, writing frequently on the other sides of scrap paper; one can well imagine that the waste of intriguing ideas, punchy phrases and vivid images would assail his conscience. He bemoans these fragments that neither grow up and leave the house as finished products with their own identities, nor gracefully regress into the primordial soup of a writer's raw material. They haunt him and "sing against the closing of my eyes." A revelatory bit of autobiography from a writer who became more business-like as he aged. "The untitled poem beginning 'Riptide' was published both as 'Riptide' and as 'Then, Again.'" - Chris Kovacs, from an unpublished bibliography-in-progress of Zelazny. A couple of bent corners, otherwise fine. (#106984).
Price: $250.00
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