Author: BEECHER, John
Title: Moloch
Description: San Francisco, Morning Star Press, 1957. Leaflet. Small 4to (7" X 11"). Front wrapper rubber block by Barbara Beecher. Hand set and hand printed by John Beecher. Fine. First separate printing. In 1957 a seven-year-old boy named Butch Bartoli died from leukemia which his parents blamed on atomic fallout over their ranch in Nye County, Nevada. A touching portrait of "a ranch kid / a tow-head like yours or mine at seven / his pockets full of marbles / pieces of string / a tiny car or plane maybe / he'd got with a box top," followed by a condemnation of the "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs" school of thought on human progress. "..still the poisonous mushrooms climb the cobalt sky / over the Reveille range / but Butch Bardoli / sleeps on" -- a poignant, chilling piece. One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices. .
Keywords: Poetry
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Title: Moloch
Description: San Francisco, Morning Star Press, 1957. Leaflet. Small 4to (7" X 11"). Front wrapper rubber block by Barbara Beecher. Hand set and hand printed by John Beecher. Fine. First separate printing. In 1957 a seven-year-old boy named Butch Bartoli died from leukemia which his parents blamed on atomic fallout over their ranch in Nye County, Nevada. A touching portrait of "a ranch kid / a tow-head like yours or mine at seven / his pockets full of marbles / pieces of string / a tiny car or plane maybe / he'd got with a box top," followed by a condemnation of the "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs" school of thought on human progress. "..still the poisonous mushrooms climb the cobalt sky / over the Reveille range / but Butch Bardoli / sleeps on" -- a poignant, chilling piece. One of the great American protest and radical poets, Beecher left his steel mill background to teach English and sociology at various universities; he worked various positions under the New Deal; his first published poem, "And I Will Be Heard" (1940), placed him on the literary map, and the book-length narrative poem "Here I Stand" came the following year; during World War Two he sailed aboard the first racially integrated ship, the S.S. Booker T. Washington, and wrote about those experiences in "All Brave Sailors"; blacklisted from teaching by refusing to sign a state loyalty oath in California in 1950, he became a rancher and farmer in Sonoma County; there he continued writing, founding the award-winning Morning Star Press in 1956 to publish his poetry and other socially-oriented pieces, becoming a gifted and accomplished practitioner in the process; this press then operated from San Francisco, Berkeley, and Jerome, Arizona; renamed Rampart Press, it relocated to Scottsdale, Arizona and other locales; "Report to the Stockholders & Other Poems" appeared in 1962 to critical acclaim and "To Live and Die in Dixie" in 1966; these later years were filled with guest teaching positions from Massachusetts to California, and Beecher was in great demand as a lecturer and poetry reader nationwide; descended from famed Abolitionists Henry Ward Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Lyman Beecher, much of John Beecher's poetry concerns itself with race relations, labor reform and other social injustices. .
Keywords: Poetry
Price: US$ 40.00 Seller: Main Street Fine Books & Manuscripts
- Book number: 18050
- Book number: 18050
See more books from our catalog: Books