Two handwritten poems in pencil by Bob Dylan, both signed "Dylan," one page, 8.5 x 11, taken from his circa 1960 'Poems Without Titles' penned while at the University of Minnesota. Two simple poems executed in the style of the Imagist school, the first about music and the second about nature. The first poem begins:
"A dark haired Einstein
sits
and
strums
and
we all
sing
Bald Mountain."
Perhaps a self-portrait, Dylan opens the poem with the image of a genius strumming his guitar while the group sings 'Bald Mountain'—presumably Odetta's 1960 trucker ballad 'I’ve Been Driving on Bald Mountain,' in which she belts the repeating lines: 'Looka here, buddy, where'd ja get your learnin'?' In May 1960, Dylan would drop out of the University of Minnesota, eschewing book learnin' for the lessons of the ramblin' road. Dylan would later use the image of Einstein-as-musician in his lyrics for the 1965 classic 'Desolation Row' ('Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood, with his memories in a trunk… You would not think to look at him, but he was famous, long ago, for playing the electric violin on Desolation Row').
The second poem asks:
"What
kind of
place
is this
when
a man
can't love
a simple tree
and when he does
is
ashamed
of
what
he
sees."
In both cases, erasures to the text are evidence of Dylan's quest to pare down his work, simplifying the poetic statement to create a resonant image: the second line of the first poem was originally "sits cross," and the first line of the second poem began as "what the hell." The second poem, in particular, takes on an entirely new tone in its revised form. In fine condition.
Bob Dylan Poem Copyright © 2022 Babinda Music
Provenance: Christie’s, 11/21/05
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