A126 ON POETRY 1969

First edition:

ON POETRY: | Collected Talks and Essays | [floral ornament] | by Robert Graves | Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City New York | 1969

Collation: [1] – [25]12, 300 leaves.

p.[1] ON POETRY: | Collected Talks and Essays; p.[2] blank; p.[3] title-page; p.[4] designer’s, LC card, copyright, rights reservation, printing and edition notices; pp.[5] –6 Foreword; pp.[7] –8 Contents; p.[9] ON POETRY: | Collected Talks and Essays; p.[10] blank; pp.[11]12–597 text, with pp.[33, 55, 83, 107, 127, 153, 157, 175, 195, 201, 227, 249, 273, 279, 301, 323, 347, 359, 367, 383, 397, 413, 427, 449, 473, 501, 529, 551, 575] being unnumbered and pp.[32, 54, 82, 106, 156, 174, 226, 248, 346, 358, 396, 412, 426, 448, 472, 574] being blank; pp.[598] – [600] blank.

23.2 × 15.1 cm. Bulk: 2.8/3.2 cm. White wove paper; top and bottom edges trimmed. White wove endpapers, inner sides printed olive green. Bound in three-quarter dark red cloth; front and back blank; spine bound in brown cloth and stamped in gold and black: [two rows, top to bottom, down spine:] [two words in gold:] ROBERT GRAVES [vertical rule] ON POETRY: | COLLECTED TALKS AND ESSAYS | [upright at foot, in gold:] DOUBLEDAY

Price: $10.00. Number of copies undetermined. Published 25 July 1969 in white dust-jacket printed in black, gold, red and grey. Jacket design by Muni Lieblein.

Contents: Foreword – The Crowning Privilege – The Age of Obsequiousness – The Road to Rydal Mount – Harp, Anvil, Oar – Dame Ocupacyon – These Be Your Gods, O Israel! – Dr. Syntax and Mr. Pound – Mother Goose’s Lost Goslings – Juana de Asbaje – The Old Black Cow – Legitimate Criticism of Poetry – The White Goddess – Sweeney Among the Blackbirds – Pulling a Poem Apart – The Dedicated Poet – The Anti-Poet – The Personal Muse – Poetic Gold – The Word ‘Báraka’ – The Poet’s Paradise – Some Instances of Poetic Vulgarity – Technique in Poetry – The Poet in a Valley of Dry Bones – Intimations of the Black Goddess – Standards of Craftsmanship – A Favourite Cat Drowned – A Pretty Kettle of Fish – The Dueude – Munta, Mammon, Marxism – Ecstasy

Note on the contents: ‘Standards of Craftsmanship’, ‘A Favourite Cat Drowned’ and ‘A Pretty Kettle of Fish’ are, respectively, Graves’s 1964 lectures 1, 2, and 3 as Oxford Professor of Poetry. ‘The Dueude’, ‘Munta, Mammon and Marxism’ and ‘Ecstasy’ are, respectively, Graves’s 1965 lectures 1, 2, and 3 as Oxford Professor of Poetry.