Soma : guarding the body poems from the fragments of the pre-Socratic philosophers with typographic images (Alan Loney’s copy)

A$750 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Limited edition

Melbourne : Electio Editions, 2008. Octavo, publisher s brown papered boards in burnt orange cloth-covered slipcase (slight wear to corner), 48 pp., with numerous illustrations; internally pristine, a fine copy. Signed and numbered by the poet. Limited to 30 copies, of which 26 (lettered A Z) are for sale, this is one of four numbered copies, number 3, inscribed Alan s . I first encountered the pre-Socratic philosophers in Kathleen Freeman’s translation in the early 1960s. Since then I have been an avid reader of these early tough and insightful texts, altho I have never completed a course in reading ancient Greek. Subsequent translations by Guy Davenport, Charles Kahn, Kirk Raven, T M Robinson, David Gallop, Brooks Haxton and Robert Bringhurst, among others, have continued to enliven my senses of the possible in thoughtful feeling in my own poetic life of the mind. The poems here are derived from several different translations of the pre-Socratics, with additions, omissions, alterations and even downright distortions by the author. While none of my speculations should be attributed to the translating poets and scholars, I nevertheless dedicate this book to them, for most of us know little of the beginnings of secular thought in the West without their labor. An earlier version of the poem was written in 1990 and published in Missing Parts (Hazard Press 1992). Alan Loney Alan Loney is a noted writer, poet, publisher and printer. Born in New Zealand in 1940, he published his fi

• Binding: Hardcover

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