Poems Collected And Selected (Association Copy)

John Daniel, Santa Barbara, 1988; First Edition; 8vo, 111 pages. Selected poems of notable California poet Hildegarde Flanner (1899-1987), once described by Jeffrey Paine of the San Francisco Chronicle as, "the best unknown writer in America." Flanner first visited California in 1915 as a girl of fifteen, where, inspired by a meeting with Olive Percival, she determined to become a poet. After graduation from U.C. Berkeley and the subsequent Berkeley fire of 1923, she moved to Los Angeles, increasing contact with Percival and becoming a figure in the local art scene. The poems here were assembled personally by Flanner from her entire body of work, with numerous selections from the now scarce "If There Is Time," and "In Native Light," as well as a few from an obscure publication by the Ikura Press in Kobe, Japan entitled "Anthology 81." In Flanner’s preface she holds that, "A serious poet, together with his concern for language, has two notable ambitions: one to write well of nature, one to write well of beauty. As a poet who dares to hope that I may deserve to be called serious, I earnestly believe that every poet should make a sincere attempt to write well in at least one instance about each of these two subjects." Foreword by Janet Lewis, calling attention to Flanner’s mixture of tenderness, beauty, wit, delight, and mysticism, but pointing out a darker side evidenced in the later poems.Hildegarde Flanner died before this, her last book of poetry, was published. Association copy, gifted by Janet Lewis to renowned Los Angeles philanthropist and patron of the arts, Anna Bing Arnold. Laid-in at the front is Lewis’s illustrated note card, with handwritten inscription reading, "Dear Anna, I think of you so often with gratitude and affection, and hope that you are well and busy with what most interests you. I have nothing to send you of mine, except now a few pages in Hildegarde’s book, which has treasures in it, but which you must not feel it a duty to read. Be well, dear Anna. Lovingly, Janet." Very Good, in wraps, faint narrow damp stain along the outermost extremity of the top blank margin of the last 11 leaves of text. Front illustration by artist/ architect Frederick Monhoff, whom Flanner married in 1926. A unique association copy from two of California’s treasured poets.