Black to Black and other Poems.
London: Carfax, 1963. First edition. Hardcover. Octavo. 32pp. Black cloth with gilt lettering to spine. Black dust jacket starkly lettered in white. The first hundred copies of this edition were supposed to have been numbered and signed on the limitation page, but it seems unlikely that this was done as we have never seen a copy marked thus - and given it's scarcity it seem most unlikely that more than a hundred copies were actually printed. While this copy is thus neither numbered or signed on the limitation page, it is inscribed in Grant's handwriting: "Kenneth / to / Kenneth / Spring 1963" (an obvious play on the book's title "Black to Black") on the half title page. As this was presumably the time of publication, it is tempting to speculate that this may once have been Grant's own copy, although the possibility remains that he inscribed it for a namesake although it is then hard to explain why he didn't sign and number it. "Black to Black" contains fifteen poems and is the first volume of poetry to be published by Kenneth Grant. From Grant's preface: "Prose is a record of experience, whereas all real poetry is experience itself, both for the poet and his reader. Where prose achieves this quality it is no longer prose, but poetry, regardless of its form or structure. Poetry is therefore a means of knowing Reality - it is direct experience - and this Reality does not consist in what is experienced but in the act of experiencing itself. Similarly, it matters little of what we are conscious; the object of consciousness has value only insofar as it proves the presence of consciousness. Likewise, poetry has an arbitrary content, being an experience of Reality on levels which transcend the contingent, such as the actual content of the poem, its structure, and accidental accessories conditioned by time and place. Poetry is the means of experience as well as being the experience itself, in the same sense that the Prajna and the Upaya are identical." The faintest of bruising to spine ends, paper lightly browned, otherwise a lovely near Fine copy in near-Fine dust jacket. Very scarce, especially with a contemporary inscription. Item #47979
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