Searching for the Ox

New York: William Morrow and Company Inc, 1976. First Edition. Fine/near fine. Hardcover : pp.93, 3 (blank) : charcoal eps : paper covered boards and cloth spine lettered in gilt ; illustrated dust wrapper : a photocopy of Simpson's poem The Bird loosely inserted with a copied hand written note "Louis Simpson, our Writer in Residence, is due to arrive in Armidale today, Monday 12th March".

Jacket is lightly creased. "Poet, editor, translator, and critic Louis Simpson was born in Jamaica to Scottish and Russian parents. He moved to the United States when he was 17 to study at Columbia University. After his time in the army, and a brief period in France, Simpson worked as an editor in New York City before completing his PhD at Columbia. He taught at colleges such as Columbia University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook...In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Simpson received numerous awards and accolades, including the Prix de Rome, the Columbia Medal for Excellence, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation. He was a finalist for the prestigious Griffin International Poetry Award, and his translation of Modern Poets of France: A Bilingual Anthology (1997) won the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award." (Poetry Foundation online).

Simpson was acquainted with Alison Hoddinott and her husband Bill when he came to Australia to be a poet-in-residence in Armidale in 1979. Hoddinott wrote extensively on the poetry of Gwen Harwood. This copy from Hoddinott's personal library.