San Francisco, California: Four Seasons Foundation, 1968
Limited First Edition of 50 copies, each signed by Brautigan
108 pages
Hard Cover; Issued without dust jacket
Light brown paper-covered boards with a dark brown cloth backstrip
Binding by Schubeth Bookbindery
The phrase "Writing 20" on the opening page indicates placement in publisher's writing series edited by Donald Merriam Allen

San Francisco, California: Four Seasons Foundation, 1968
Regular First Edition
108 pages; 5.5" x 8"; Library of Congress Card Catalog #68-20131
Printed pictorial wrappers
Front cover photograph by Edmund Shea of Marcia Pacaud, of Montreal, Canada. Several of the poems collected in this book are dedicated to her.
No back cover illustration or photograph
The phrase "Writing 20" on the opening page indicates placement in publisher's writing series edited by Donald Merriam Allen

Dedication reads:

This book is for Miss Marcia Pacaud of Montreal, Canada.

Several poems in this collection are also dedicated to Marcia Pacaud.
First published in 1968, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, a collection of ninety-eight poems, was Brautigan's fifth collection of poetry; his seventh poetry book publication.

In addition to thirty eight previously uncollected poems, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster included The Return of the Rivers (May 1957), all nine parts of The Galilee Hitch-Hiker (1958), nine poems from the Lay The Marble Tea (1959), seventeen poems from The Octopus Frontier (1960), and all thirty two poems from All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (1967).

The reference to "The Springhill Mine Disaster" in the title comes from the 1958 mining disaster in Springhill, Nova Scotia, Canada. A popular folk song, "The Springhill Mine Disaster," was written shortly afterward by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger.

The front cover photograph was taken early in 1968, in a excavation site for the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), at the corner of New Montgomery and Market Streets, in San Francisco (William Hjortsberg 377).

• Donald Allen
• Generic

• Cape
• Delacorte
• Delta
• Laurel
• Houghton Mifflin

• Czech
• French
• German
• Japanese
• Persian
• Russian

Unless noted, poems first published in this volume in the order listed below.
Follow links below for additional information about previously published or collected poems.

"All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Horse Child Breakfast"
Horse child breakfast,
what are you doing to me?
with your long blonde legs?
with your long blonde face?
with your long blonde hair?
with your perfect blonde ass?

I swear I'll never be the
     same again!

Horse child breakfast
what you're doing to me,
I want done forever.

This poem appears in the feature film The Sun Ship Game, a film about the competitions for placement in the 1969 National Soaring Championships in Marfa, Texas. The 1971 film, directed by Robert Drew, follows two competitors, George Moffat and Gleb Derujinsky. Moffat, an English lecturer, reads the poem to a class at the beginning of the film.

San Francisco Express Times 1(32) August 28, 1968: 6.
Published weekly from 24 January 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 1) to 24 December 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 49) as San Francisco Express Times. Continued after as Good Times. Published at 15 Lafayette Street, San Francisco by the Trystero Company. Printed by Waller Press. Included eight poems by Brautigan: "General Custer Versus the Titanic," "The Shenevertakesherwatchoff Poem," "Xerox Candy Bar," "Horse Child Breakfast," "Crab Cigar," "I Live in the Twentieth Century," "Alas, Measured Perfectly," and "The Way She Looks at It."
"General Custer Versus the Titanic"
     For the soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry who were killed at the Little Bighorn River and the passengers who were lost on the maiden voyage of the Titanic.
     God bless their souls.

Yes! it's true all my visions
have come home to roost at last.
They are all true now and stand
around me like a bouquet of
lost ships and doomed generals.
I gently put them away in a
beautiful and disappearing vase.

"General Custer": Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876) and the 264 men of the 7th Cavalry under his command were annihilated by an estimated 5,000 Sioux Indians on the banks of the Little Big Horn River in eastern Montana Territory, the morning of 26 June 1876.
"Titanic": The White Star liner RMS Titanic sank after striking an iceberg on its maiden voyage, 14 April 1912.

A First Reader of Contemporary American Poetry. Ed. Patrick Gleason. Columbus, Ohio: Merrill, 1969. 23-26.
Included eight poems by Brautigan: "In a Cafe," "The Wheel," "The Sidney Greenstreet Blues," "The Fever Monument," "Horse Race," "Our Beautiful West Coast Thing," and "The Pomegranate Circus," and "General Custer Versus the Titanic."

San Francisco Express Times 1(32) August 28, 1968: 6.
Published weekly from 24 January 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 1) to 24 December 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 49) as San Francisco Express Times. Continued after as Good Times. Published at 15 Lafayette Street, San Francisco by the Trystero Company. Printed by Waller Press. Included eight poems by Brautigan: "General Custer Versus the Titanic," "The Shenevertakesherwatchoff Poem," "Xerox Candy Bar," "Horse Child Breakfast," "Crab Cigar," "I Live in the Twentieth Century," "Alas, Measured Perfectly," and "The Way She Looks at It."
"The Beautiful Poem"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Private Eye Lettuce"
The Octopus Frontier
"A Boat"
Lay The Marble Tea
"The Shenevertakesherwatchoff Poem"
For Marcia

Because you always have a clock
strapped to your body, it's natural
that I should think of you as the
     correct time:
with your long blonde hair at 8:03,
and your pulse-lightning breasts at
11:17, and your rose-meow smile at 5:30,
     I know I’m right.

"Marcia": Marcia Pacaud, from Montreal, Canada, appeared in the photograph on the front cover of The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster. Written mid-July, while Brautigan was staying at Pacaud's Sausalito apartment, 15 Princess Lane (apartment 5). Several poems in this collection are dedicated to her.

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Telephone Door That Leads Eventually to Some Love Poems," Brautigan reads twelve poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems.

San Francisco Express Times 1(32) August 28, 1968: 6.
Published weekly from 24 January 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 1) to 24 December 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 49) as San Francisco Express Times. Continued after as Good Times. Published at 15 Lafayette Street, San Francisco by the Trystero Company. Printed by Waller Press. Included eight poems by Brautigan: "General Custer Versus the Titanic," "The Shenevertakesherwatchoff Poem," "Xerox Candy Bar," "Horse Child Breakfast," "Crab Cigar," "I Live in the Twentieth Century," "Alas, Measured Perfectly," and "The Way She Looks at It."
"Karma Repair Kit: Items 1-4"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Oranges"
Oh, how perfect death
computes an orange wind
that glows from your footsteps,

and you stop to die in
an orchard where the harvest
fills the stars.
"San Francisco"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Xerox Candy Bar"
     Ah,
you're just a copy
of all the candy bars
I've ever eaten.

A holograph broadside of this poem, written in ink by Brautigan on a sheet of 9" x 12" sketchbook paper, in 1967, is known. Allegedly, Brautigan was commissioned to produce a broadside poem and planned to execute it by hand. This broadside may have been a practice effort by Brautigan to enlarge his distinctively small handwriting. No other versions, practice, finished, or reproduced are reported.

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," Brautigan reads sixteen poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems.

San Francisco Express Times 1(32) August 28, 1968: 6.
Published weekly from 24 January 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 1) to 24 December 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 49) as San Francisco Express Times. Continued after as Good Times. Published at 15 Lafayette Street, San Francisco by the Trystero Company. Printed by Waller Press. Included eight poems by Brautigan: "General Custer Versus the Titanic," "The Shenevertakesherwatchoff Poem," "Xerox Candy Bar," "Horse Child Breakfast," "Crab Cigar," "I Live in the Twentieth Century," "Alas, Measured Perfectly," and "The Way She Looks at It."
"Discovery"
The petals of the vagina unfold
like Christopher Columbus
taking off his shoes.

Is there anything more beautiful
than the bow of a ship
touching a new world?

"Christopher Columbus": Italian navigator (1451-1506), considered the "Discoverer of America" during Brautigan's youth.

Just What The Country Needs, Another Poetry Anthology. Eds. James McMichael and Dennis Saleh. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1971. xii, 22-26, 185.
6.5" x 9.5", 190 pages
A poetry anthology collecting 124 poems by 30 poets, including Brautigan.

Includes biographical notes for each contributor and an introduction by X. J. Kennedy, who says,

Anyone who cares for poetry ought to encounter much to delight and startle him here. Among such gratifications for me was . . . Richard Brautigan, abruptly popular, whose best work (see "The Winos on Potrero Hill") moves with a beautiful transparency. (xii)

Reprints five poems by Brautigan: "The Winos on Potrero Hill," "The Quail," "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," "Discovery," and "Adrenalin Mother," all from The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster.

The biographical note for Brautigan reads:

Richard Brautigan published several small books of poetry in limited editions and then collected them in one volume, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, published first by Four Seasons Foundation and them by Delacorte. He has also published three novels and a book of new poems, Rommel Drives On Deep into Egypt. Brautigan is 36 and has lived in San Francisco for many years.

San Francisco Express Times 1(49) December 24, 1968: 8-9.
Published weekly from 24 January 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 1) to 24 December 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 49) as San Francisco Express Times. Continued after as Good Times. Published at 15 Lafayette Street, San Francisco by the Trystero Company. Printed by Waller Press. Included eleven poems by Brautigan: "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," "The Day they Busted the Grateful Dead," "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace," "Discovery," "At the California Institute of Technology," "Boo, Forever," "The Sidney Greenstreet Blues," "The Flowerburgers Part 4," "A Baseball Game Part 7," "December 24," and "The Garlic Meat Lady."
"Widow's Lament"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"The Pomegranate Circus"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"The Winos of Potrero Hill"
The Octopus Frontier
"The First Winter Snow"
Oh, pretty girl, you have trapped
yourself in the wrong body. Twenty
extra pounds hang like a lumpy
tapestry on your perfect mammal nature.

Three months ago you were like a
deer staring at the first winter snow.

Now Aphrodite thumbs her nose at you
and tells stories behind your back.

"Aphrodite": The Greek goddess of love.
"Death Is a Beautiful Car Parked Only"
For Emmett

Death is a beautiful car parked only
to be stolen on a street lined with trees
whose branches are like the intestines
     of an emerald.
You hotwire death, get in, and drive away
like a flag made from a thousand burning
     funeral parlors.

You have stolen death because you're bored.
There's nothing good playing at the movies
     in San Francisco.

You joyride around for a while listening
to the radio, and then abandon death, walk
away, and leave death for the police
     to find.

"Emmett": Emmett Grogan, was one of the founders of the San Francisco Diggers in September 1966. Brautigan admired The Diggers for their services to the needy. Grogan included the poem in his autobiography, Ringolevio: A Life Played for Keeps (Boston: Little Brown, 1972. 468-469) and thanked Brautigan.

Beatitude (20) Mar. 1969.
Published by City Lights Books, San Francisco, California.
Included four poems by Brautigan: "The Harbor," "The Double-Bed Gallows," "Adrenalin Mother," and "Death is a Beautiful Parked Car Only."

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," Brautigan reads sixteen poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems.
"Surprise"
The Octopus Frontier
"Your Departure Versus the Hindenburg"
Every time we say good-bye
I see it as an extension of
     the Hindenburg:
that great 1937 airship exploding
in medieval flames like a burning castle
     above New Jersey.
When you leave the house, the
shadow of the Hindenburg enters
     to take your place.

"the Hindenburg": LZ 129 Hindenburg, a German dirigible (blimp) named after the German general and president Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1934). The Hindenburg exploded 6 May 1937 just short of a mooring mast in Lakehurst, New Jersey, following its transatlantic flight.
"Education"
There is a woman
on the Klamath River
who has five
hundred children
in the basement,
stuffed like
hornets into
a mud nest.
Great Sparrow
is their father.
Once a day
he pulls a
red wagon between
them and
that's all
they know.

"Klamath River": A river in Southern Oregon.
"Love Poem"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"The Fever Monument"
The Octopus Frontier
"At the California Institute of Technology"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"A Lady"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"'Star-Spangled' Nails"
You've got
some "Star-Spangled"
     nails
in your coffin, kid.
That's what
they've done for you,
     son.

"Star-Spangled Nails": "The Star-Spangled Banner" written by Francis Scott Key in 1814 and adopted as the United States' national anthem in 1931.

12" x 18" broaside privately published: Berkeley, California, 1970?
Printed in black lower case lettering on turquoise-colored construction paper with three red, five pointed stars above the poem. Brautigan's name appeared below, in lower case letters.

It is unclear whether Brautigan was involved in the production of this broadside. Five copies are known to exist. Three are held in university collections: one at the State University of New York in Buffalo, one at Ball State University, and one at Northwestern University. The other two are held in private collections.
"The Pumpkin Tide"
The Octopus Frontier
"Adrenalin Mother"
Adrenalin Mother,
with your dress of comets
and shoes of swift bird wings
and shadow of jumping fish,
thank you for touching,
understanding and loving my life.
Without you, I am dead.

Beatitude (20) Mar. 1969.
Published by City Lights Books, San Francisco, California.
Included four poems by Brautigan: "The Harbor," "The Double-Bed Gallows," "Adrenalin Mother," and "Death is a Beautiful Parked Car Only."

Just What The Country Needs, Another Poetry Anthology. Eds. James McMichael and Dennis Saleh. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1971. xii, 22-26, 185.
6.5" x 9.5", 190 pages
A poetry anthology collecting 124 poems by 30 poets, including Brautigan.

Includes biographical notes for each contributor and an introduction by X. J. Kennedy, who says,

Anyone who cares for poetry ought to encounter much to delight and startle him here. Among such gratifications for me was . . . Richard Brautigan, abruptly popular, whose best work (see "The Winos on Potrero Hill") moves with a beautiful transparency. (xii)

Reprints five poems by Brautigan: "The Winos on Potrero Hill," "The Quail," "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," "Discovery," and "Adrenalin Mother," all from The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster.

The biographical note for Brautigan reads:

Richard Brautigan published several small books of poetry in limited editions and then collected them in one volume, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, published first by Four Seasons Foundation and them by Delacorte. He has also published three novels and a book of new poems, Rommel Drives On Deep into Egypt. Brautigan is 36 and has lived in San Francisco for many years.

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," Brautigan reads sixteen poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems.
"The Wheel"
The Octopus Frontier
"Map Shower"
For Marcia

I want your hair
to cover me with maps
of new places,

so everywhere I go
will be as beautiful
as your hair.

"Marcia": Marcia Pacaud, from Montreal, Canada, appeared in the photograph on the front cover of The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster. Written mid-July, while Brautigan was staying at Pacaud's Sausalito apartment, 15 Princess Lane (apartment 5).Several poems in this collection are dedicated to her.
"A Postcard from Chinatown"
The Octopus Frontier
"The Double-Bed Dream Gallows"
Driving through
hot brushy country
in the late autumn,
I saw a hawk
crucified on a
barbed-wire fence.

I guess as a kind
of advertisement
to other hawks,
saying from the pages
of a leading women's
     magazine,
"She’s beautiful,
but burn all the maps
to your body.
I'm not here
of my own choosing."

Beatitude (20) Mar. 1969.
Published by City Lights Books, San Francisco, California.
Featured four poems by Brautigan: "The Harbor," "The Double-Bed Gallows," "Adrenalin Mother," and "Death is a Beautiful Parked Car Only."

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Telephone Door That Leads Eventually to Some Love Poems," Brautigan reads twelve poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems.
"December 30"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace.
"The Sawmill"
The Octopus Frontier
"The Way She Looks at It"
Every time I see him, I think:
Gee, am I glad he’s not
     my old man.

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Telephone Door That Leads Eventually to Some Love Poems," Brautigan reads twelve poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems.

San Francisco Express Times 1(32) August 28, 1968: 6.
Published weekly from 24 January 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 1) to 24 December 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 49) as San Francisco Express Times. Continued after as Good Times. Published at 15 Lafayette Street, San Francisco by the Trystero Company. Printed by Waller Press. Included eight poems by Brautigan: "General Custer Versus the Titanic," "The Shenevertakesherwatchoff Poem," "Xerox Candy Bar," "Horse Child Breakfast," "Crab Cigar," "I Live in the Twentieth Century," "Alas, Measured Perfectly," and "The Way She Looks at It."
"Yes, the Fish Music"
Lay The Marble Tea
"The Chinese Checker Players"
Lay The Marble Tea
"I've Never Had It Done So Gently Before"
For M

The sweet juices of your mouth
are like castles bathed in honey.
I've never had it done so gently before.
You have put a circle of castles
around my penis and you swirl them
like sunlight on the wings of birds.

"M"; According the William Hjorstberg, "M" stands for Michaela Blake-Grand, whom Brautigan met in January 1967, and to whom he dedicated this erotic poem (Hjortsberg 284).

Blake-Grand appeared with Brautigan in the front cover photograph for Trout Fishing in America and with Brautigan and daughter Ianthe in the front cover photograph for Brautigan's first collection, Trout Fishing in America, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, In Watermelon Sugar. Blake-Grand was formerly involved with Andy Cole, Brautigan's friend and roommate from October-December 1963.

"M"; Given the book's dedication, "M" might also signify Marcia Pacaud, from Montreal, Canada, who appeared in the photograph on the front cover. Several poems in this collection are dedicated to her and each bears her full name. Perhaps Brautigan used only the first initial given the nature of the poem, but more likely, he wanted to signify a different person, as Hjortsberg suggests.
"Our Beautiful West Coast Thing"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Man"
With his hat on
he's about five inches taller
than a taxicab.

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," Brautigan reads sixteen poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems.
"The Silver Stairs of Ketchikan"
2 A.M. is the best time
to climb the silver stairs
of Ketchikan and go up into the trees
and the dark prowling deer.

When my wife gets out of bed
to feed the baby at 2 A.M., she turns
on all the lights in Ketchikan
and people start banging on the doors
and swearing at one another.

That's the best time
to climb the silver stairs
of Ketchikan and go up into the trees
and the dark prowling deer.

"Ketchikan": A town in Southeast Alaska, the first Alaskan port of call from the mainland United States.
"Hollywood"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Your Necklace is Leaking"
For Marcia

Your necklace is leaking
and blue light drips
from your beads to cover
your beautiful breasts
with a clear African dawn.

"Marcia": Marcia Pacaud, from Montreal, Canada, appeared in the photograph on the front cover of The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster. Several poems in this collection are dedicated to her.
"Haiku Ambulance"
A piece of green pepper
     fell
off the wooden salad bowl:
     so what?

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," Brautigan reads sixteen poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems.
"It's Going Down"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Alas, Measured Perfectly"
Saturday, August 25, 1888. 5:20 P.M.
is the name of a photograph of two
old women in a front yard, beside
a white house. One of the women is
sitting in a chair with a dog in her
lap. The other woman is looking at
some flowers. Perhaps the women are
happy, but then it is Saturday, August
25, 1888. 5:21 P.M., and all over.

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," Brautigan reads sixteen poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems.

San Francisco Express Times 1(32) August 28, 1968: 6.
Published weekly from 24 January 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 1) to 24 December 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 49) as San Francisco Express Times. Continued after as Good Times. Published at 15 Lafayette Street, San Francisco by the Trystero Company. Printed by Waller Press. Included eight poems by Brautigan: "General Custer Versus the Titanic," "The Shenevertakesherwatchoff Poem," "Xerox Candy Bar," "Horse Child Breakfast," "Crab Cigar," "I Live in the Twentieth Century," "Alas, Measured Perfectly," and "The Way She Looks at It."
"Hey, Bacon"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace

This poem was reproduced as an interesting speciality publication. LEARN more >>>
"The Rape of Ophelia"
The Octopus Frontier
"A Candlelion Poem"
For Michael

Turn a candle inside out
and you've got the smallest
portion of a lion standing
there at the edge of the
     shadows.

"Michael": Michael McClure, poet and friend who said, "his poem 'For Michael' is beautiful . . .." (Michael McClure 38)
"I Feel Horrible. She Doesn't"
I feel horrible. She doesn't
love me and I wander around
the house like a sewing machine
that's just finished sewing
a turd to a garbage can lid.
"Cyclops"
Lay The Marble Tea
"Flowers for Those You Love"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"The Galilee Hitch-Hiker"
The Galilee Hitch-Hiker
"It's Raining in Love"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Poker Star"
It's a star that looks
like a poker game above
the mountains of eastern
     Oregon.
There are three men playing.
They are all sheepherders.
One of them has two pair,
the others have nothing.
"To England"
Lay The Marble Tea
"I Lie Here in a Strange Girl's Apartment"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Hey! This Is What It's All About"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"My Nose Is Growing Old"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Crab Cigar"
I was watching a lot of crabs
eating in the tide pools
of the Pacific a few days ago.

When I say a lot: I mean
hundreds of crabs. They eat
     ike cigars.

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," Brautigan reads sixteen poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems.

San Francisco Express Times 1(32) August 28, 1968: 6.
Published weekly from 24 January 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 1) to 24 December 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 49) as San Francisco Express Times. Continued after as Good Times. Published at 15 Lafayette Street, San Francisco by the Trystero Company. Printed by Waller Press. Included eight poems by Brautigan: "General Custer Versus the Titanic," "The Shenevertakesherwatchoff Poem," "Xerox Candy Bar," "Horse Child Breakfast," "Crab Cigar," "I Live in the Twentieth Century," "Alas, Measured Perfectly," and "The Way She Looks at It."
"The Sidney Greenstreet Blues"
The Octopus Frontier
"Comets"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"I Live in the Twentieth Century"
For Marcia

I live in the Twentieth Century
and you lie here beside me. You
were unhappy when you fell asleep.
There was nothing I could do about
it. I felt helpless. Your face
is so beautiful that I cannot stop
to describe it, and there's nothing
I can do to make you happy while
     you sleep.

"Marcia": Marcia Pacaud, from Montreal, Canada, appeared in the photograph on the front cover of The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster. Several poems in this collection are dedicated to her.

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Telephone Door That Leads Eventually to Some Love Poems," Brautigan reads twelve poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems.

San Francisco Express Times 1(32) August 28, 1968: 6.
Published weekly from 24 January 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 1) to 24 December 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 49) as San Francisco Express Times. Continued after as Good Times. Published at 15 Lafayette Street, San Francisco by the Trystero Company. Printed by Waller Press. Included eight poems by Brautigan: "General Custer Versus the Titanic," "The Shenevertakesherwatchoff Poem," "Xerox Candy Bar," "Horse Child Breakfast," "Crab Cigar," "I Live in the Twentieth Century," "Alas, Measured Perfectly," and "The Way She Looks at It."
"The Castle of the Cormorants"
Lay The Marble Tea
"Lovers"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Sonnet"
Lay The Marble Tea
"Indirect Popcorn"
What a good time fancy!
like a leisure white interior
with long yellow curtains.
I'll take it to sleep with me tonight
and hope that my dreams are built
toward beautiful blonde women eating
     indirect popcorn.
"Star Hole"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Albion Breakfast"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Let's Voyage into the New American House"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"November 3"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"The Postman"
The Octopus Frontier
"A Mid-February Sky Dance"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"The Quail"
The Octopus Frontier
"1942"
The Octopus Frontier
"Milk for the Duck"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"The Return of the Rivers"
The Return of the Rivers. San Francisco: Inferno Press, May 1957.
"A Good-Talking Candle"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"The Horse That Had a Flat Tire"

Berkeley Review 1(3) 1957: 14-15.
Published 1921 Walnut Street, Berkeley, California, 1956-1957. Edited/published by William P. Barlow, Jr., George Huppert, and C. A. Tong. Published only one volume (with three issues) from Winter 1956 through 1957.

Featured two poems by Brautigan: "The Return of the Rivers" (page 14) and "The Horse That Had A Flat Tire" (page 15). Both collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster.

Also featured work by Walter Ballenger, Adrian Stoutenberg, Barbara Cochran, May Swenson, Robert Beloof, Samuel Menashe, Donald Gutierrez, David Cornel DeJong, John Tagliabue, Anthony Ostroff, Richard Wilbur, Richard Eberhart, and Robert Horan.

According to Keith Abbott, Brautigan, in early 1968, inspired by the collaboration between his poet friend Michael McClure and Janis Joplin on the song "Mercedes Benz," gave Joplin a copy of "The Horse That Had Flat Tire" and "She Sleeps This Very Evening in Greenbrook Castle" hoping she would use it as the basis for a song (Abbott 71). Joplin's song "Mercedes Benz," although drawing from McClure's line "Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz," was actually written in collaboration with Bob Neuwirth, road manager for Bob Dylan during the English tour filmed in "Don't Look Back," and was included on Joplin's album Pearl, released in 1971, post-humously, following her death in 1970. Michael McClure collaborated with Bobby Womack to write the song "Trust Me," included on the same album.

Poems Here and Now. Ed. David Kherdian. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1976. 13, 17.
Includes two poems by Brautigan: "The Chinese Checker Players" and "The Horse That Had a Flat Tire."
"Kafka's Hat"
Lay The Marble Tea
"Nine Things"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Linear Farewell, Nonlinear Farewell"
When he went out the door,
he said he wasn’t coming back,
but he came back, the son-
ofabitch, and now I'm pregnant,
and he won’t get off his ass.
"Mating Saliva"
A girl in a green mini-
skirt, not very pretty, walks
     down the street.

A businessman stops, turns
to stare at her ass
that looks like a moldy
     refrigerator.

There are now 200,000,000 people
     in America.

Shake the Kaleidoscope: A New Anthology of Modern Poetry. Ed. Milton Klonsky. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973. 274-276.
Included six poems by Brautigan: "To England," "November 3," "A Mid-February Sky Dance," "Mating Saliva," "Romeo and Juliet," and "As the Bruises Fade, the Lightning Aches."
"Sit Comma and Creeley Comma"
The Octopus Frontier
"Automatic Anthole"
Driven by hunger, I had another
forced bachelor dinner tonight.
I had a lot of trouble making
up my mind whether to eat Chinese
food or have a hamburger. God,
I hate eating dinner alone. It's
     like being dead.
"The Symbol"
The Octopus Frontier
"I Cannot Answer You Tonight in Small Portions"
I cannot answer you tonight in small portions.
Torn apart by stormy love’s gate, I float
like a phantom facedown in a well where
the cold dark water reflects vague half-built
               stars
and trades all our affection, touching, sleeping
together for tribunal distance standing like
a drowned train just beyond a pile of Eskimo
               skeletons.

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Telephone Door That Leads Eventually to Some Love Poems," Brautigan reads twelve poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems.
"Your Catfish Friend"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"December 24"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace.
Retitled "November 24" in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster table of contents, although the poem itself retains the original title.
"Horse Race"
The Octopus Frontier
"The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster"
When you take your pill
it's like a mine disaster.
I think of all the people
     lost inside of you.

"Springhill Mine Disaster": The disaster occurred in 1958 in Springhill, Nova Scotia, Canada. A popular folk song, "The Springhill Mine Disaster," was written shortly afterward by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger.

Earth, Air, Fire, and Water: A Collection of Over 125 Poems. Ed. Frances Monson McCullough. New York: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1971. 27, 130, and 142.
Included three poems by Brautigan: "To England," "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," and "The Day They Busted the Grateful Dead."

Just What The Country Needs, Another Poetry Anthology. Eds. James McMichael and Dennis Saleh. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1971. xii, 22-26, 185.
6.5" x 9.5", 190 pages
A poetry anthology collecting 124 poems by 30 poets, including Brautigan.

Includes biographical notes for each contributor and an introduction by X. J. Kennedy, who says,

Anyone who cares for poetry ought to encounter much to delight and startle him here. Among such gratifications for me was . . . Richard Brautigan, abruptly popular, whose best work (see "The Winos on Potrero Hill") moves with a beautiful transparency. (xii)

Reprints five poems by Brautigan: "The Winos on Potrero Hill," "The Quail," "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," "Discovery," and "Adrenalin Mother," all from The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster.

The biographical note for Brautigan reads:

Richard Brautigan published several small books of poetry in limited editions and then collected them in one volume, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, published first by Four Seasons Foundation and them by Delacorte. He has also published three novels and a book of new poems, Rommel Drives On Deep into Egypt. Brautigan is 36 and has lived in San Francisco for many years.

San Francisco Express Times 1(49) December 24, 1968: 8-9.
Published weekly from 24 January 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 1) to 24 December 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 49) as San Francisco Express Times. Continued after as Good Times. Published at 15 Lafayette Street, San Francisco by the Trystero Company. Printed by Waller Press. Included eleven poems by Brautigan: "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," "The Day they Busted the Grateful Dead," "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace," "Discovery," "At the California Institute of Technology," "Boo, Forever," "The Sidney Greenstreet Blues," "The Flowerburgers Part 4," "A Baseball Game Part 7," "December 24," and "The Garlic Meat Lady."

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Telephone Door That Leads Eventually to Some Love Poems," Brautigan reads twelve poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems.
"After Halloween Slump"
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
"Gee, You're So Beautiful That It's Starting to Rain"
Oh, Marcia,
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
lives like music in the skin
and sounds like a sunshine harpsichord.
I want high school report cards
     to look like this:

Playing with Gentle Glass Things
     A

Computer Magic
     A

Writing Letters to Those You Love
     A

Finding out about Fish
     A

Marcia’s Long Blonde Beauty
     A+!

"Marcia": Marcia Pacaud, from Montreal, Canada, appeared in the photograph on the front cover of The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster. Several poems in this collection are dedicated to her.

Unicorn Books of Goleta, California, [December 1967; see Darllington article below] or January 1968?
Broadside printed on tan newsprint paper with the additional title "The San Francisco Weather Report." Printed by Graham Mackintosh for free distribution. A second printing was offered in 1969.

2,500 copies were distributed free in San Francisco's financial district on 26 January 1968 (Notes From A Revolution: Com/co, the Diggers & the Haight. New York: Foggy Notion Books, 2012. 170.) or during December 1967 (Darlington article, below).

Paris Review 45 (Winter) 1968: 140.
Poem titled here "San Francisco Weather Report." The spelling "harpsicord" is corrected to "harpsichord." The Paris Review, published in New York, City 1953-1974 was founded by novelist Peter Matthiessen and Harold Hume and was one of the great literary magazines of the latter half of the twentieth century.
In addition to Brautigan's poem, this issue also featured poetry by Jim Carroll (of the rock group Traffic), Tom Clark, Ron Padgett, Anne Waldman, Frank O'Hara, Jim Brodey, and others. Also included was an interview with John Updike, a journal by Edward Hoagland titled "Notes from the Century Before," fiction by Joy Williams, Austin Wright, Tom Veitch, and others.

"Please Plant This Page." Sandy Darlington. (San Francisco Express Times 21 March 1968 Vol. 1, No. 9: 5.) Article includes a photograph by Bob Seidemann of Brautigan sitting in a wicker chair. Darlington profiles Brautigan's Please Plant This Book, using it as an example of how authors release books to their readers. Says, of "Gee, You're So Beautiful That It's Staring to Rain," READ the full text of this article.

San Francisco Express Times was published weekly from 24 January 1968 (Vol. 1, No. 1) to 24 December 1968 (Vol. 1, No. 49) as San Francisco Express Times. Continued after as Good Times. Published at 15 Lafayette Street, San Francisco by the Trystero Company. Printed by Waller Press.

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Telephone Door That Leads Eventually to Some Love Poems," Brautigan reads twelve poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems.
"The Nature Poem"
The Octopus Frontier
"The Day They Busted the Grateful Dead"
The day they busted the Grateful Dead
rain stormed against San Francisco
like hot swampy scissors cutting Justice
into the evil clothes that alligators wear.

The day they busted the Grateful Dead
was like a flight of winged alligators
carefully measuring marble with black
     rubber telescopes.

The day they busted the Grateful Dead
turned like the wet breath of alligators
blowing up balloons the size of the
     Hall of Justice.

"Busted the Grateful Dead": Several members of the popular San Francisco rock band, "The Grateful Dead," were arrested for drug possession on 2 October 1967. On 4 October the band held a press conference to protest the arrest.

Earth, Air, Fire, and Water: A Collection of Over 125 Poems. Ed. Frances Monson McCullough. New York: Coward, McCann, and Geoghegan, 1971. 27, 130, and 142.
Included three poems by Brautigan: "To England," "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," and "The Day They Busted the Grateful Dead."

San Francisco Express Times 1(49) December 24, 1968: 8-9.
Published weekly from 24 January 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 1) to 24 December 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 49) as San Francisco Express Times. Continued after as Good Times. Published at 15 Lafayette Street, San Francisco by the Trystero Company. Printed by Waller Press. Included eleven poems by Brautigan: "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," "The Day they Busted the Grateful Dead," "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace," "Discovery," "At the California Institute of Technology," "Boo, Forever," "The Sidney Greenstreet Blues," "The Flowerburgers Part 4," "A Baseball Game Part 7," "December 24," and "The Garlic Meat Lady."
"The Harbor"
Torn apart by the storms of love
and put back together by the calms
     of love,

I lie here in a harbor
that does not know
where your body ends
and my body begins.

Fish swim between our ribs
and sea gulls cry like mirrors
     to our blood.

Beatitude (20) Mar. 1969.
Published by City Lights Books, San Francisco, California.

Featured four poems by Brautigan: "The Harbor," "The Double-Bed Gallows," "Adrenalin Mother," and "Death is a Beautiful Parked Car Only."

Seven Watermelon Suns: Selected Poems of Richard Brautigan. The Cowell Press: University of California at Santa Cruz, 1974.
A speciality press collection of seven works by Brautigan, each printed as a separate 6" x 8.5" broadside with embossed color etchings by Ellen Meske. One of the seven poems reprinted was "The Harbor."
"The Garlic Meat Lady from"
We're cooking dinner tonight.
I'm making a kind of Stonehenge
     stroganoff.
Marcia is helping me. You
already know the legend
     of her beauty.
I've asked her to rub garlic
on the meat. She takes
each piece of meat like a lover
and rubs it gently with garlic.
I've never seen anything like this
     before. Every orifice
of the meat is explored, caressed
     relentlessly with garlic.
There is a passion here that would
drive a deaf saint to learn
the violin and play Beethoven at
     Stonehenge.

"Stonehenge": An assemblage of upright stones on the Salisbury Plain in Southern England.
"Marcia": Marcia Pacaud, from Montreal, Canada, appeared in the photograph on the front cover of The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster. Several poems in this collection are dedicated to her.
"Beethoven": Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), a German composer.

San Francisco Express Times 1(49) December 24, 1968: 8-9.
Published weekly from 24 January 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 1) to 24 December 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 49) as San Francisco Express Times. Continued after as Good Times. Published at 15 Lafayette Street, San Francisco by the Trystero Company. Printed by Waller Press. Included eleven poems by Brautigan: "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," "The Day they Busted the Grateful Dead," "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace," "Discovery," "At the California Institute of Technology," "Boo, Forever," "The Sidney Greenstreet Blues," "The Flowerburgers Part 4," "A Baseball Game Part 7," "December 24," and "The Garlic Meat Lady."
"In a Cafe"
Lay The Marble Tea
"Boo, Forever"
Spinning like a ghost
on the bottom of a
     top,
I'm haunted by all
the space that I
will live without
     you.

San Francisco: Free City News (1) October 1967.
A broadside poem, included in an anthology of ten poems, each published as broadsides by the Diggers. Also issued separately.
8.5" x 14" white construction-like paper of various colors; Ten leaves (broadsides) plus illustrated front and back wrappers.
Many leaves (but not Brautigan's) were printed on both sides with illustrated poems and prose pieces and news commentary. All were anonymously.
Artwork by Stanley Muse.
Brautigan's poem, without title, was centered on the page, framed by an Egyptian-style erotic illustration and a numbered listing of Kama Sutra sexual positions. The poem was untitled and so is often cited by its first line: "Spinning Like a Ghost."

Brautigan originally titled this poem part of "Three Poems to Celebrate the History of Marcia" in reference to Marcia Pacaud. Later, it was collected and retitled "Boo, Forever" in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster

San Francisco Express Times 1(49) December 24, 1968: 8-9.
Published weekly from 24 January 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 1) to 24 December 1968 (Vol. 1, no. 49) as San Francisco Express Times. Continued after as Good Times. Published at 15 Lafayette Street, San Francisco by the Trystero Company. Printed by Waller Press. Included eleven poems by Brautigan: "The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster," "The Day they Busted the Grateful Dead," "All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace," "Discovery," "At the California Institute of Technology," "Boo, Forever," "The Sidney Greenstreet Blues," "The Flowerburgers Part 4," "A Baseball Game Part 7," "December 24," and "The Garlic Meat Lady."

"Listening to Richard Brautigan." Harvest Records.
On one track of this album, titled "The Telephone Door That Leads Eventually to Some Love Poems," Brautigan reads twelve poems collected in The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, including this one.

LISTEN to Brautigan read these poems. In addition to the specific reviews detailed below, reviews of this book may also be included in General Reviews of Brautigan's work and his place in American literature, or reviews of his Collections.


READ the full text of the reference to Brautigan.
READ the full text of this review. Reviews The Complete Poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Snapshopts of a Daughter-in-Law by Adrienne Rich, The Fire Screen by James Merrill, In the Early Morning Rain by Ted Berrigan, Lion Lion by Tom Raworth, Scantlings by Gael Turnbull, Lucidities by Elizabeth Jennings, In Focus by Jeremy Robson, Thunder of Grass by John Moat Barrie and Jenkins, Expostulations by Teddy Hodge, The Wooden Muse, Part One by Alec Pope, and The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster by Brautigan.

The complete text referring to Brautigan reads:

Richard Brautigan's novels are highly praised. His poems are minor adjuncts to his prose: more coherent and funny than [Ted] Berrigan's [In The Early Morning Rain also reviewed], but with the dreadful, characteristic soft-centredness: "I want your hair/ to cover me with maps/ of new places, so everywhere I go/ will be as beautiful/ as you hair."

First printing October 1972. READ the full text of the reference to Brautigan.

Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 3. Ed. Carolyn Riley. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1975. 86-90.
READ the full text of the reference to Brautigan.