23 numbered copies

£15 inc shipping

16 pages. Format approx. 6"/150mm wide x 300mm/12" tall. Handsewn at the Sick Tangerine workshop. Recycled Cairn almond stiff card covers; front cover artwork embossed in black. Heritage book white text paper; Japanese 'red with gold pearlised fan patternation' endpapers (one side only).

A small selection of poems from the enigmatic US poet, painter, literary critic, novelist, playwright, jazz pianist, short story writer and filmmaker. On July 19th 1955, at the age of 41 years, Kees' car was found deserted on the Marin County side of the Golden Gate Bridge. He was never seen again.

SOLD OUT

No copies were sent out for review

Harry Weldon Kees was an American poet, painter, literary critic, novelist, playwright, jazz pianist, short story writer, and filmmaker. Kees’ story really gets going when he left his native Nebraska to start a new life in 1950s San Francisco. Here he worked at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Clinic (part of University of California), taking photographs for academic publications. He mixed with artists and writers such as Willem de Kooning, Kenneth Rexroth and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. In 1954, he divorced his increasingly unbalanced wife who was later institutionalised. Kees himself had depressive episodes, exacerbated by a two year barbiturate habit. As time went on, as various projects failed to get off the ground, friends noticed more erratic behaviour. On July 19, 1955, Kees’ car was found deserted on the Marin County side of the Golden Gate Bridge. He was never seen again.