PICKARD, Tom. Guttersnipe.

(San Francisco, CA): City Lights Books, 1971. First edition. Softcover. 20.2 by 13.5cm. 76 pages. Cool novella by Pickard (manager of secondhand bookshop in Newcastle) who left school at fourteen to sign on, insisting to dole authorities that his only job was poetry. He started the Modern Tower poetry readings with Connie Watson in 1964. This novella is his portrait of the young poet as a layabout born into the class-trap of coal town in North England. A very good copy in wrappers with cover photo of the author by Elsa Dorfman.