This is Our Music: poems "for the new music & the new musicians"
Detroit: The Artists' Workshop Press, 1965. First Printing, limited to 500 copies. Black and white cover photo. Softcover. Octavo. 45 pages.
Sinclair's first book, with and Introduction by Detroit cornetist Charles Moore. The poems herein reflect Sinclair's deep connections with the jazz scene and the countercultural movements of 1960s Detroit. He co-founded the arts collective Detroit Artists' Workshop in 1964, and this became the third booklet they published.
Sinclair would also manage the Detroit proto-punk band MC5 in the 1960s, and in 1968 he co-founded the White Panther Party. His 1969 arrest on marijuana charges brought a 10 year prison sentence, garnering several high-profile protests that resulted in a revision of Michigan's drug laws.
Cover photograph of John Sinclair and Charles Moore is by Magdalene Arndt, who also printed the edition of 500 copies with John Sinclair in June of 1965.
Light gray printed paper covers, saddle-stapled binding. Mild toning and edge wear to covers, interior uniformly age-toned. Shallow bump to top fore corner of first several leaves, with tip of one leaf chipped to depth of 1/4". Very good overall. A well-preserved copy of this uncommon and notoriously vulnerable booklet.
Item #1664
Price: $250