Vintage copy of Bob Dylan’s letter poem “—for Dave Glover,” one page both sides, 8.5 x 11, removed from an original program for the 1963 Newport Folk Festival by Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman and mailed to Dave Glover. The beginning of the poem reads: “Yuh ask in the last letter how come I aint wrote lately—, Yuh say that writin t me’s like blowin words at a stone wall—, Yuh ask in a quiet way if I changed my ways so hard that I don remember old friends—, Yuh even ask if I’m mad at yuh for somethin—An with each letter sent yuh never got a one back—, An I know how yuh mus’ feel.”
Included is a TLS from Holzman signed “Jac,” one page, 5.5 x 8.25, personal letterhead, August 17, 1963, forwarding the poem to Glover: “I just got back to my office, and I am enclosing Bobby’s poem as I had promised. Look very much forward to seeing you in New York.” In overall fine condition, with expected mailing folds and a rough left edge to poem. Accompanied by the original Elektra Records mailing envelope.
In an interview for the documentary No Direction Home, Glover recalls the reason why his name made it into the Newport Festival program: ‘[Dylan] mentioned that on that visit when he came back. He said, yeah, I wrote you a letter. I said, oh, did you mail it? And he said, well, no. I said, what happened? He said, well, they called me up and they wanted something for the Newport Book, and they needed it like in a week, and I didn’t have it. I said, well, I don’t have anything. And they said, well, anything, have you got anything laying around, is there anything you started? He said, well, I got this letter I was writing to a friend of mine. And they said, well, great. So, actually about the first two lines of that are actually a letter to me as this pretext for writing this sort of recapitulation about where he is, and what he’s doing, and what he’s been up to. That was cool. I didn’t mind. It was okay. It was kind of weird.’
From the Tony Glover Collection.
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