Second April

Bob Kaufman

Bob Kaufman's Second April was announced in the colophon of his Abomunist Manifesto as "a black illumination." Proclaiming itself an "abominable combustion," the work is described as "an autobiographical journey springing out of the blind conjunction of such events as Christ's April crucifixion, death and resurrection by A-bomb, and the author's own birth." Published in October, 1959 by City Lights Books (San Francisco), the work was followed by the similarly formatted broadside Does the Secret Mind Whisper?. Printed offset at the Troubador Press (San Francisco) in an edition of one-thousand copies and presented as a single leaf (87.5 x 19 cm) of white wove paper folded into sixths (19 x 14.6 cm), printed recto and verso with the final two panels serving as title cover and colophon respectively.
 

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