The Collected Books of Jack Spicer first appeared in 1975, ten years after the death of Jack Spicer

Jack Spicer

Jack Spicer was an American poet often identified with the San Francisco Renaissance. In 2009, My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer won the American Book Award for poetry.-Life and work:...

. It was "edited & with a commentary by Robin Blaser

Robin Blaser

Robin Francis Blaser was an author and poet in both the United States and Canada.-Personal background:Born in Denver, Colorado, Blaser grew up in Idaho, and came to Berkeley, California, in 1944. There he met Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan, becoming a key figure in the San Francisco Renaissance of...

" and published in Santa Rosa

Santa Rosa, California

Santa Rosa is the county seat of Sonoma County, California, United States. The 2010 census reported a population of 167,815. Santa Rosa is the largest city in California's Wine Country and fifth largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area, after San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, and Fremont and 26th...

, CA by Black Sparrow Press. A primary document of the San Francisco Renaissance

San Francisco Renaissance

The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range of poetic activity centered on San Francisco and which brought it to prominence as a hub of the American poetic avant-garde. However, others The term San Francisco Renaissance is used as a global designation for a range...

, The Collected Books of Jack Spicer has arguably reached the status of a twentieth century "classic" and helped to define an emerging countertradition to the prevailing literary establishment. Since this edition has gone out of print, it has been updated, revised and republished as My Vocabulary Did This To Me. The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer, Edited by Peter Gizzi and Kevin Killian (Wesleyan University Press, 2008).

Contents of The Collected Books of Jack Spicer

The content's page of The Collected Books of Jack Spicer (Fifth Printing, 1996) is divided into four sections:

First (1) section

Reprints twelve books of poetry composed between 1957-1965 and in (for the most part) chronological order.

(Please note that only the title is listed on the content's page. However, each title page itself lists a date and, in some cases, a subtitle. These are shown below)

• After Lorca, With an Introduction by Federico Garcia Lorca
  Federico García Lorca
  Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
  
  , 1957
• Admonitions , 1958
• A Book of Music, with words by Jack Spicer, 1958
• Billy the Kid , 1958
• Fifteen False Propositions Against God, 1958
• A Red Wheelbarrow, [1968]
• Apollo Sends Seven Nursery Rhymes to James Alexander,
• Lament for The Makers, 1961
• Heads of the Town up to the Aether, ("Homage to Creeley
  Robert Creeley
  Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...
  
  "; "A Fake Novel About The

Life of Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud

Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...

"; "A Textbook of Poetry"), 1960-61

• The Holy Grail, ("The Book of Gawain", "The Book of Percival", "The Book of

Lancelot", "The Book of Gwenivere", "The Book of Merlin", "The Book of Galahad",
"The Book of the Death of Arthur"), 1962

• Language, ("Thing Language", "Love Poems", "Intermissions", "Transformations",

"Morphemics", "Phonemics", "Graphemics"), 1964

• Book of Magazine Verse, (Poems: "for The Nation", "for Poetry Chicago",

"for Tish", "for Ramparts", "for The St. Louis Sporting News",
"for the Vancouver Festival", "for Downbeat"), (no date follows)

Third (3) section

"Poems & Documents" which lists the following:

• Imaginary Elegies I-VI
• The Unvert Manifesto
• Song for Bird and Myself
• Poem to the Reader of the Poem
• "Poetry as Magic" Workshop Questionnaire
• The Trojan Wars Revewed: A Capitulation
• Troy Poem

Further reading

• A Book Of Correspondences For Jack Spicer. Edited By David Levi Strauss and Benjamin Hollander. San Francisco: A Journal of Acts (#6) (1987) (note: this is a collection of essays, poetry, and documents celebrating Spicer).

• The Collected Books of Jack Spicer. Edited and with commentary by Robin Blaser. Santa Rosa, Calif.: Black Sparrow Press, 1975.

• The House that Jack Built: The Collected Lectures of Jack Spicer, ed. Peter Gizzi
  Peter Gizzi
  Peter Gizzi is an award-winning American poet and renowned editor of the American poet Jack Spicer. He attended Brown University, New York University and the State University of New York at Buffalo.-Life and career:...
  
   - Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press.

• My vocabulary did this to me. The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer, Edited by Peter Gizzi and Kevin Killian, Wesleyan University Press, 2008.

• Ellingham, Lew, and Kevin Killian. Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1998.

• Foster, Edward Halsey. Jack Spicer, Boise, Idaho : Boise State University, c1991

• Tallman, Warren
  Warren Tallman
  Warren Tallman was an American-born poetry professor who inspired the Canadian Tish movement and influenced the mid-20th century poetry scene in Canada.- History :...
  
  . In the Midst. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1992.