POEMS OF A PENISIST

First English edition, first printing of one of the most important compilations of homoerotic poetry written in the twentieth century. Hardcover issue. Original green faux leather with titles in gilt to the spine and upper board, in dustwrapper. Illustrated throughout in black and white. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the spine tips and corners with some rubbing. The contents, with a small, light mark to the text block fore-edge and faint spotting to the endpapers, are otherwise clean throughout. Complete with the lightly rubbed, nicked and creased original dustwrapper which has a few very short closed tears at the spine tips and two pieces of tape to the underside. Not price-clipped ($10 to the front flap).

Issued simultaneously in hardcover and softcover, both of which are scarce. A groundbreaking collection by Matsuo Takahashi, the centrepiece of which, his long poem 'Ode', has been described by the publisher Winston Leyland "the great gay poem of the twentieth century". One of contemporary Japan's most significant poets, Takahashi's work, reminiscent of Walt Whitman's, is a celebration of the male body, treating homosexual desire as something sacred.