(Palma de Mallorca), Divers Press, 1953. Olson's letters to Robert Creeley written while Olson was in the Yucatan. One of approximately 600 copies, published by Creeley's Divers Press, in French-folded wrappers. Remarkably, this book, in which the letters only hint at the extent to which Olson's experiences and discoveries were shoring up his hypothesis that the escape from "the too-simple westernisms of a 'greek culture'" lay at least partly in a "repossess[ing] ... of the Indian past" of America, is virtually the entire written record of that period, at least insofar as he directly refers to the Mayans and his belief that their sculpture and art provided a kind of "concrete poetry" whose rules were very different from those of Western art, and whose form therefore contained implicit lessons for us, if we could but read them. The last line of the last letter perhaps sums up some of the frustrations he felt: "The trouble is, it is very difficult, to be both a poet and, an historian." A provocative and revealing book by this important member of the avant-garde Black Mountain community. Text block detached; spine section of wrapper absent; lower rear flap laid in. A good copy only. With the ownership signature of author Howard Norman. [#023575] SOLD