Hamill, Sam. [Printed Manuscript] [Poetry] [Tu Fu / Du Fu]

Watching the Distances: Homage to Tu Fu. Poems from the Chinese by Sam Hamill. [Printed Manuscript]

N.pl. n.pu. [circa mid-1980s]. Paperback / Manuscript. Printed manuscript. Unpaginated [72pp]. Printed on rectos only. Letter-sized sheets [11" x 8.5"] in a simple plastic side-binding and plain blue covers. There are few corrections to the printed text. Lightly toned around edges. Rare. Near Fine. Item #70976

Manuscript of this unpublished work of translations by Sam Hamill. English translations of sixty-two poems by the Chinese "poet-sage" or "poet-historian" of the Tang Dynasty, Tu Fu (or "Du Fu," 712–770 AD). The Washington State University Libraries' Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC, Terrell Library) holds copies of four versions of this manuscript in the "Sam Hamill Papers, 1972-2001" archive.

This manuscript contains: the title page [p1], "About Tu Fu" quote by Li Po [p2], an Introduction [p3-6], a table of contents page listing sixty-two poems and an afterword [p7-8], an epigraph (a quotation from Tu Fu) [p9], the sixty-two poems [p10-71], and the afterword [p72].

American poet and translator Sam Hamill (1943–2018) was also co-founder of the influential Copper Canyon Press. Over his five-decade career, he published poetry collections, taught in prisons, and founded Poets Against the War, a movement to protest the 2003 Iraq invasion.

"Sam Hamill was adopted from foster care at the age of three and grew up on a farm in Utah. His early experiences with violence, theft, jail time, and boot camp were combined with a growing interest in poetry, particularly Beat poetry. During a judge-ordained enlistment in the Marine Corps, Hamill encountered Albert Camus’s essays on pacifism and discovered Zen literature as well, and his commitment to the Zen practice would later inform his poetry. He attended Los Angeles Valley College and the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he studied with poet Kenneth Rexroth. As a UCSB student, Hamill won a $500 award for producing the best university literary magazine in the country. With that money he left college and, with Bill O’Daly and Tree Swenson, co-founded the all-poetry Copper Canyon Press in Denver, Colorado. Copper Canyon later joined with the nonprofit arts organization Centrum in Port Townsend, Washington. Hamill was editor-printer for the press from 1972 until 2004" (Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sam-hamill).

Price: $500.00