TOUCH ME

Los Angeles, California: Nash Publishing, 1973. Second Printing. Hardcover. Very Good in Very Good Dustjacket. Hank Saroyan (Photographs). Octavo. Turquoise buckram-over-boards (8 1/2 in. x 5 1/2 in.). Three corners barely nudged, and a bit of foxing to endpapers, but otherwise, tight and bright. Dustjacket is just a wee bit toned after fifty years. Lovely copy of a collection of poems by someone who understood the many sorts of touchings that occur, some sincere, far too many others guarded or masquerading unspoken intentions, but each form of touching, distilling down to that basic human need, just to be touched, loved, affirmed.

No matter whether the late Suzanne Somers was idolized, imitated, stereotyped, "emblematized" or ridiculed, this book of poems, published a full half-century ago, reveals a genuine human being searching for authenticity and the truth, and suffering the peculiar (and often surprising!) burdens -- even "imprisonment" -- which being a physically beautiful
woman in this culture entails. She was strong enough to question it, and nobody can blame her for trying use
it to get along through life -- but as much on her own terms as she could manage. "It is hard for anyone to be ignored. Not to be touched. This is the core of loneliness, life's most acute pain. To wander without contact, without being noticed, without 'attention being paid'. There are many ways to touch -- lovers touch with tingling intensity, strangers touch with caution, children touch with confidence, competitors touch with suspicion, exploiters touch with clammy hands, the ocean and the forest and the mountains touch with power and gentleness. We need to be touched, with respect and warmth, with dignity and concern, with passion and understanding. We long to be touched with strength and tenderness, with reverence and beauty, and especially with love..." (from Introduction).