KOAN AMERICANA

First edition, first printing. Signed by the author. Publisher's original cream card covers with titles in black to the upper board and spine. A better than very good copy, the binding square and firm, lightly rubbed to the spine and extremities, bright and fresh. The contents, are clean throughout and other than the author's, without inscriptions or stamps.

Signed and dated '17.7.[19]93' by David Starkey in black ink on the title page and further inscribed 'To Rhonda, / With many thanks to my / favorite vegetarian cookbook author. / - DS'. A former poet laureate of Santa Barbara, CA, David Starkey's most celebrated poetical works possess a common theme: American culture and politics. This collection is one of Starkey's earliest publications, released just two years after he completed his postgraduate education, and keenly observes the material objects, behaviours, and belief systems that make up contemporary American life. The 'Koan' of the title refers to the Zen Buddhist practice of observing one's buddha-nature, and can be carried out as a story, dialogue, statement, or, most recognisably, as an unanswerable question, as a form of meditation. We can see this in practice in Starkey's poem 'Marshall on the Rim' (p.11), where a Chinese-American man asks the narrator numerous Koan questions, to no response and little understanding. Another core component of Koan, the student-master relationship, is effectively portrayed in the eponymous Epilogue, where the 'Disciple' learns about American capitalism from his Master in the style of classical East Asian philosophy.