Sparrow 5 Signed by Charles Bukowski: While the Music Played

Published in February 1973 by Black Sparrow Press, this copy of Sparrow 5 was signed by Charles Bukowski on the cover.  It is in Near Fine +condition with some very light aging to the covers.

John Martin started publishing Sparrow Magazine back in 1973.  It featured softcover issues dedicated to a single poet that Black Sparrow Press had under contract. It doesn’t appear to have had a regular publishing schedule, so I’m not sure what the occasion was for putting out an issue. It wasn’t based on new books being published, at least in Bukowski’s case, because all four Sparrows dedicated to his poems would not be published until 1979’s “Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit.”

Sparrow 5 was titled “While the Music Played” and contains the following poems:

• 2347 Duane
• 5 Dollars
• A Radio With Guts
• Cooperation
• I'm In Love
• The Apple
• The Egg
• The Knifer
• The Ladies Of Summer
• The Night I Was Going To Die
• The Violin Player

Each of these poems would be later be collected in 1979’s “Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit”.

Case 6