Please Plant This Book by Brautigan, Richard - 1968

San Francisco, 1968. 6 1/4 x 7" folder, photographically illustrated, housing 8 seed packets, each letterpress printed with the name of the plant and a poetic text at recto, with planting directions at verso. Illustrated with photographs by Bill Brach. Printed by Graham Mackintosh. A remarkable artist's book by Brautigan, likely inspired by his time spent with The Diggers, whose system of free printing and distribution of ephemera and books fascinated Brautigan, as well as perhaps Wallace Berman's Semina - the cover of the folder, and the size and use of the folder itself is uncannily similar to aspects of Semina. The book was published and handed out for free by Brautigan in the streets of San Francisco, and was the last independently published work by Brautigan, who would then move on to mainstream publishers and become an icon and cypher of the mainstream. The little girl on the cover is Caledonia Jahrmarkt, daughter of Billy Jahrmarkt, who was the proprietor of the Batman Gallery, a Digger, and close collaborator with Wallace Berman (Jahrmarkt gave Berman the Verifax Machine with which he made his Verifax collages). The book is obviously inspired by the back to the land movement and the Environmentalist ethos of the hippies, but is also a formally innovative work that expands the notion of the book. Brautigan's brief texts draw parallels between plants, paper, and publishing in a remarkable manner for which we can think of no antecedents. Stray red ink mark to cover, along with some dust-soiling and a 1/2" closed tear at foot of spine. The packets are all present and still sealed, with the seeds intact. The packets show some minor discoloration and staining from the seeds within. Scarce with all seed packets present.