Ceremony Latin (1964)

First Edition, 1975. 23 pages.

Book measures 6.5 x 8 inches. Side stapled wrappers. The first book written by Bernadette Mayer in 1964, though not actually published until 1975 (her 4th published book) by Angel Hair, though no publisher info is printed in the book. In a July 17, 1989 lecture at Naropa, Bernadette describes Ceremony Latin (1964): “The structure of this book is simply the duplication of a journal that I kept when I was about 17, and it includes translation from Ovid, ‘The Golden Age,’ and sort of funny journalistic notes and poems and things about how much I hated my grandfather. So all I did was print the journal itself and the reason I wanted to do it was because the keeping of this journal was what had inspired me to really want to become a poet, so I thought it might be beautiful and useful to other people.”