FAVORITE BOOKS WITH “OF” IN THEIR TITLES

This was a fun list to make while falling asleep last night (I thought of it because at my recent reading in Great Barrington I read from my book OF, which I rarely do because it’s a booklength poem and I always think it needs to be dug in its entirety rather than piecemeal, but it turns out that certain small excerpts work quite well, and one of my best known shorter poems actually comes from OF so…)

For this list I only used collected and selected books if the “of” was part of the title, so for instance Jimmy Schuyler’s COLLECTED POEMS doesn’t use the “of” in the title, but O’Hara’s does, (and I double checked them this morning) thus:

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS by Gertrude Stein,
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS,
THE ADVENTURES OF MR. AND MRS. JIM AND RON by Ron Padgett and Jim Dine
AN ADVENTURE OF THE THOUGHT POLICE by Peter Schjeldahl,
THE ART OF THE NOVEL by Milan Kundera,
THE ART OF LEE MILLER
and THE ANCIENT USE OF STONE by Ray DiPalma
BY THE WATERS OF MANHATTAN by Charles Reznikoff (actually two different books, one an early novel from the 1930s, and later he used the same title for his selected poems in the 1960s, both favorites of mine),
BIG SUR AND THE ORANGES OF HIERONYMUS BOSCH by Henry Miller (maybe my favorite book of his),
THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING by Milan Kundera,
BORN OF A WOMAN by Etheridge Knight,
BLUES OF THE EGYPTIAN KINGS by Jim Brodey,
BIRTH OF THE COOL by Lewis MacAdams
and THE BOUNDARIES OF BLUR by Nick Piombino
THE COMPLETE POETRY OF JOHN DONNE,
THE COMPLETE POEMS OF JOHN KEATS,
THE COMPLETE POEMS OF STEPHEN CRANE,
CONFESSIONS OF ZENO by Italo Svevo,
THE CANTOS OF EZRA POUND (that’s the full title on my old hardback copy),
CONFESSIONS OF AN IRISH REBEL by Brendan Behan,
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF JANE BOWLES,
THE COLLECTED POEMS OF FRANK O’HARA,
CITY OF GLASS by Paul Auster,
THE CORNERS OF THE MOUTH by Elaine Equi
and THE COLLECT CALL OF THE WILD by Bob Holman
THE DESCENT OF WINTER by William Carlos Williams
and THE DRIFT OF THINGS by Terence Winch
THE EATER OF DARKNESS by Robert M. Coates
and EMPIRE OF SKIN by Tom Clark
THE FACE OF WAR by Martha Gelhorn
and THE FALL OF AMERICA by Allen Ginsberg
GREAT BALLS OF FIRE by Ron Padgett
and THE GREAT BIG BOOK OF TOMORROW by Tom Tomorrow
A HISTORY OF AMERICA by Bill Hutton
THE INVENTION OF SOLITUDE by Paul Auster
THE JOURNAL OF ALBION MOONLIGHT by Kenneth Patchen
and THE JUKEBOX OF MEMNON by Ray DiPalma
K?
LEAVES OF GRASS by Walt Whitman,
THE LIVES OF LEE MILLER by Anthony Penrose (her son),
THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE BOG by John Norton,
THE LONG EXPERIENCE OF LOVE by Jim Moore
and LIFE OF A POET: Rainer Maria Rilke by Ralph Freedman
MOMENTS OF THE ITALIAN SUN by James Wright,
THE MORNING OF THE POEM by James Schuyler,
MOTION OF THE CYPHER by Ray DiPalma
MERCY OF A RUDE STREAM by Henry Roth (the overall title of his last series of autobiographical novels),
THE MEMORY OF ALL THAT by Betsy Blair,
MEMOIRS OF A STREET POET by Frank T. Rios
and THE MOUTH OF JANE by Bobby Miller
THE NOTEBOOKS OF MALTE LAURIDS BRIGGE by Rainer Maria Rilke,
THE NOTEBOOKS OF JOSEPH JOUBERT edited and translated by Paul Auster,
A NEST OF NINNIES by John Ashbery & James Schuyler
and NONE OF THE ABOVE edited by Michael Lally (an anthology of poets in the early ‘70s I dug)
OF MICE AND MEN by John Steinbeck,
ONE DAY IN THE AFTERNOON OF THE WORLD by William Saroyan,
OF BEING NUMEROUS by George Oppen,
ORDERS OF THE RETINA by Thomas M. Disch,
OF by Michael Lally
and OUT OF OUR MINDS by George O’Brien
THE POEMS OF CATULLUS,
THE POEMS OF FRANCOIS VILLON translated by Galway Kinnell,
THE POETRY AND PROSE OF WILLIAM BLAKE (a giant paperback I’ve had for decades),
A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce,
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG DOG by Dylan Thomas,
THE POEMS OF ALFRED STARR HAMILTON,
POEMS OF A DOGGY by Chris Mason,
A POCKETFUL OF DREAMS: Bing Crosby the Early Years by Gary Giddins,
PURITY OF ABSENCE by Dave Margoshes
and POCKETS OF WHEAT by Geoff Young
Q?
RECOLLECTIONS OF MY LIFE AS A WOMAN: The New York Years by Diane di Prima
and A RUMOR OF INHABITANTS by Robert Slater
STORIES OF GOD by Rainer Maria Rilke,
THE SYSTEM OF DANTE’S HELL by LeRoi Jones (before he was Amira Baraka),
SPRING IN THIS WORLD OF POOR MUTTS by Joe Ceravolo,
SONG OF THE SILENT SNOW by Hubert Selby Jr.
and SELECTED LETTERS OF MARTHA GELHORN
THIS SIDE OF PARADISE by F. Scott Fitzgerald,
TROPIC OF CANCER and TROPIC OF CAPRICORN by Henry Miller,
THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE by William Saroyan,
THE TEMPLE OF GOLD by William Goldman
A TESTAMENT OF HOPE: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King Jr.
THE UFOS OF OCTOBER by Robert Bove
VISONS OF GERARD, VISIONS OF CODY and THE VANITY OF DULOUZ all three by Jack Kerouac
and THE VILLAGE OF LONGING by George O’Brien
THE WINE OF ASTONISHMENT by Martha Gelhorn
and THE WIFE OF WINTER by Michael Dennis Browne
X?
YEARS OF PROTEST edited by Jack Salzman (a terrific anthology of writing from the 1930’s)
Z?