Poetry. Music. Discovered by the publisher in a box in his garage, this book of transcriptions of Helen Adam's music by Carl Grundberg, which includes the texts of the ballads transcribed, is newly available from SPD. Why a Helen Adam songbook? For one thing, it's hard to get hold of her ballads in any form. Most of the ones in this book come from collections out of print or hard to obtain. But I've long felt a more pressing need for the publication of the music as well as the words to the songs. Anyone who has heard Helen perform realizes how much she communicates in the moment of song; how much is lost when the bare words are rendered on the printed page. For Helen Adam's art is essentially an oral music, at its height, though the words alone can certainly hold their own as poetry, much as do Thomas Campion's - Carl Grunderg from the Introduction). SPD is offering this attractive, large format book at its original price. Helen Adam's SAN FRANCISCO'S BURNING (Singing Horse) is also available.

Helen Adam (b. December 2, 1909 in Glasgow, Scotland—d. September 19, 1993 in New York City) was an American poet, collagist and photographer who was an active participant in The San Francisco Renaissance, a literary movement contemporaneous to the Beat Generation that occurred in San Francisco during the 1950s and 1960s. Though often associated with the Beat poets, she would more accurately be considered one of the predecessors of the Beat Generation. She was 82 when she died.