Cuba

The cover of Cuba, showing a photograph of a palm tree.

This copy of Tapa Kearney’s 1978 collection Cuba is accompanied by a stapled, typed pre-publication manuscript version. The manuscript is illustrated throughout and includes handwritten corrections; the illustrations were not included in the published book. Included with the Cuba manuscript is a possibly related letter “for gordon and joann” [sic], signed “Love, Margarita.”

Kearney—also known as Margaret Tapa Kearney—had previously worked primarily in the visual arts and became connected with Anne Waldman through the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. A reading by Kearney of work that includes Cuba, with an introduction by Anne Waldman, can be heard online at the Naropa University Audio Archive.

Tapa Kearney. Cuba. New York: Angel Hair Books, 1978.

Tapa Kearney. Cuba [Angel Hair pre-publication manuscript]. Ca. 1978.

Tapa Kearney. Typed letter signed. Ca. 1978.

The cover of the pre-publication manuscript for Cuba.

The title page from Cuba.

An excerpt from the published version of Cuba, presented without illustration.

An example of an illustration from the manuscript draft of Cuba.

Another example of an illustration from the manuscript draft of Cuba, showing a black and white photograph of a woman.

Typed letter signed "from margarita."