Coins & Coffins [Inscribed]

NY: Hawk's Well Press, 1962. 35pp. 12mo. Sewn in French wraps. SIGNED, dated and inscribed by Wakoski to Ted [Berrigan, as we contend below] on front cover verso. Formerly Izzy Young's copy, with his ownership inscription at head of rear page ("Israel G. Young, 4-29-66, 7th St."). Very good, with soiling and rubbing to wraps, light wear along hinges.

Wakoski's inscription, a backhanded compliment at best, reads: "Ted – I always forget that there can be experimental poetry / but I continue to hope for it and be excited by it even though I can't participate. You are the "best-worst" poet I know. Continué Diane Wakoski 4-7-65." Wakoski's antipathy for Berrigan was hardly a secret. Only four years later, she was to state her feelings quite plainly in Greed : Parts 3 and 4 (Black Sparrow Press, 1969): "Telling Ted Berrigan, / .... / that I don't like his poems, / is an act of greed on my part." And later in the same stanza: "I don't like his poems any less / than I like the poems of lots of other poets, / I don't like the way he treats his wife, / and so I put him down publicly." Our contention that Berrigan was the recipient is further strengthened by the ownership inscription of Izzy Young, at whose Folklore Center Berrigan hosted a Sunday afternoon reading series in the mid-1960s. At least one other volume of poetry currently on the market bears Young's ownership inscription with a date in May 1966 and "from Ted Berrigan," which helps to establish that Berrigan was indeed passing books to Young around that time.