Summer Balloons

(No place, but Tulsa, OK: The Author, Spring 1960). First edition of Padgett's rare first book, a four-page chapbook. Presentation copy, inscribed on verso front cover to his close friend and collaborator, the artist George Schneeman: "for George Schneeman, Here is my latest and possibly last work, April 1967. Ron Padgett recollects that Summer Balloons "consists of a few poems that I wrote for a girl I was in love with in our senior year of high school in Tulsa. To make them presentable to her, I went to a Mr. Casebeer, a local job printer who worked out of the garage behind his house, setting everything by hand and printing it letterpress. When I asked him how much five copies would cost, he said, "About the same as one hundred," so I had him print more than five, but how many I do not remember, maybe that hundred. For many years I thought that I should have stuck with five, because there were those additional copies floating around displaying my rampant adolescent sentimentality to any and all. But then I said to myself, "Enough with the vanity," and stopped worrying about it. And, after all, the girl was so beautiful and nice. Covers slightly dust-soiled, otherwise a very good copy. 12mo, original white wrappers. Covers slightly dust-soiled, otherwise a very good copy.