Loofahs for Lepers

Kankakee, IL: Bleak Vision Press, 1958. Fiske’s debut: A collection of 20 poems. 2,000 trade copies; 150 signed and numbered editions in quarter-morocco; 26 signed and lettered editions in full black morocco with matching black morocco slipcase.

Lost Fever Dreams of A Tumescent Chanticleer

Kankakee, IL: Bleak Vision Press, 1959. Planned, but unreleased collection of Fiske’s juvenilia. Suppressed as a result of a campaign organized by Estes Kefauver. A few galley copies are rumored to have survived, though to date, this claim remains unconfirmed.

Ode to Lucy Mercer

Warm Springs, GA: 1963. Privately printed deluxe edition of 500 signed, numbered copies in blue morocco binder. Copies 1-10 feature special bound-in Fiske caricature of Eleanor Roosevelt.

NOW+HERE=NOWHERE: Poems 1961-63

Sauk City, WI: Bandycoot Press, 1963. A collection of 35 early poems not collected in Loofahs for Lepers. On sale for less than a day: withdrawn by the publisher at the request of Rose Kennedy who objected to “The Love Song of L. Harvey Oswald.” The estimated number of copies sold before the balance of the 3,500 press run was destroyed range from 30 to 55.

ME in TIME; YOU in YOUTH

Greenwich, CT: Loping Menacer, 1964. Privately printed limited edition of 250 signed, numbered copies in wraps. Contains eight poems.

To Sir(han) With Love

Sauk City, WI: Bandycoot Press, 1969. A collection of 24 poems. On sale for approximately six hours before being withdrawn by the publisher at the request of Rose Kennedy. The estimated number of copies sold before the bulk of the 3,800 press run was destroyed range from 15 to 25. Fiske was subsequently dropped by this publisher. Some have theorized Fiske purposely wrote several poems calculated to enrage the Kennedy family matriarch in order to break his unfavorable contract with Bandycoot Press.

Ef, ily lenol, lonely life

Fiske’s unfinished palindromic novel. Believed to have been started in 1952, Fiske returned to the work several times before abandoning it in the early 1960s.

Right Cross to the Soul

NY: Playboy Press, wraps, 1969. First printing of 20,000. Winner of the Panzer Award.

Color Me Bud

Fremantle, Australia: Paperback original, 1975. Eight “lost” poems and four short essays. Material remains unreleased in the U.S and U.K.

Charlie Weaver Died For Your Sins

Meigs County, OH: 1977. Privately printed tribute to the late Hollywood Squares stalwart. All copies — including Fiske’s handwritten original — are believed to have been lost in a printing house flood. Fiske had in 1972 been declared Burbank’s poet laureate and commenced upon a ten-year tenure of composing poems dedicated to deceased television stars including Totie Fields, Peter Duel and Hollywood Square’s regular Paul Lynde. (In 1965, unsubstantiated reports placed Fiske at the scene of a San Francisco hotel room from which the sometimes “Bewitched” star’s “weekend travelling companion” plummeted eight stories to his death following a night of “pub crawling.”).

Don't Force It

NY: E.P. Dutton, Inc., 1978. Bud Fiske’s infamous collection of erotic haikus, withdrawn just days before publication. An undetermined number of uncorrected proofs were released to reviewers and book sellers: these now fetch $2,000 or more from well-heeled Fiske collectors.

The Tedious Potluck

Arlington Heights, IL: Moorhead & York LTD,1983. Privately printed collection of 15 1960s-vintage poems. Unknown number of copies; Japanese hand-laid endpapers; wicker-weave covers adorned with stainless steel fork. “The Eclectic Courtesan” received the 1984 Clemenceau award. Generally regarded as Fiske’s poetic zenith.

The Big Comb-Over NY: Fawcett, wraps, 1985. Fiske’s then-recently discovered mystery novel allegedly written in collaboration with noted crime novelist (and rare Fiske friend) Hector Lassiter.

It's Not A Gun (So I Must Be Happy 2 C U)

Kinlochleven, Scotland: Tattered Tartan Press, 1988. First edition of 300 leather-bound copies shrink-wrapped with cassette tape of Fiske reading twelve of the 48 poems contained in this late-1980s anthology. Readings were captured on wire recording device in El Paso, TX, circa 1957.

Daze and Knights with Dutch

Washington DC: GOP Central Committee, January, 1989. A privately printed monograph in royal blue wraps. Approximately 5,000 copies. Distributed to Bush campaign contributors.

NRA Lover Letters

Yorba Linda, CA: Napoli Wizzhart, 1990. A privately-printed holograph facsimile.

Tiki Variations: All A-Lono

Glasgow, Scotland: Angusta MacKrimmon, 1992. Limited edition of 250 copies in brown and white cowhide boards. 200 copies signed and numbered; 25 copies signed and lettered; twenty five copies imprinted with Fiske’s right thumb-print and signed.

Juice This

NY: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1995. A cycle of 35 previously unreleased poems (written circa 1988-1992). First edition consisted of 8,000 copies.

Fiske-T Cuffs: I Am My Own Milk Carton: Have U Seen Me?

Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1997. Fourteen poems, three letters and a transcription of a cable access channel interview with Angie B. Dickinson Plath conducted by Bud Fiske.

Retro-Bution

NY: Solipsist Press, wraps, 1997. Single copy known to exist; privately held.

Curiously Valid Clichés (& Other Sobering Simplicities)

London: Bodley Head Press, 1998. A sprawling, posthumous collection of 932 Fiske poems purportedly inspired by, or about, Angie B. Dickinson Plath. The pieces contained in this collection range from single line musings regarding Plath to an epic poem consisting of 321 cantos.

(Note: A complete listing of Bud Fiske’s hundreds of produced and unproduced screenplays and teleplays may be found in Tasso Tatum’s chapbook, Bud Fiske: (fly on the) Screen (door in a) Daze, NY: Tatum Ent., 1999.)

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