There’s a Little Ambuguity Over There Among the Bluebells, by Ruth Krauss

While Ruth Krauss remains best known for timeless children’s classics like The Carrot Seed and mentoring Maurice Sendak, There’s a Little Ambiguity Over There Among the Bluebells and Other Theater Poems highlights her kaleidoscopic mind writing for an older audience. The pieces offer minimal regard for the traditional boundaries of stagecraft, operating instead on pure linguistic immediacy, spontaneity, and visual design. It remains a prized piece of 1960s underground literary art.

There’s a Little Ambiguity is a rare and avant-garde collection of “poem-plays” and theatrical poetry written for adults published in 1968 by Something Else Press—a legendary publisher founded by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins—the book showcases Krauss’s transition from a master of redefining children’s literature to an eccentric voice in the off-off-Broadway experimental theater scene.

Core Themes and Content

• Genre-Bending Pieces: The book is comprised of quirky, unconventional scripts, short monologues, spontaneous verse, and what has been affectionately called “horse-opera-with-wings.”
• Playful Absurdity: Krauss utilizes a wildly imaginative, surrealist lens where “Spring running wild” can physically collide with a poet running wild.
• Balance of Tones: Sentimental and sweet, saccharine moments are sharply juxtaposed with funny, strange, and highly abstract concepts.
• Collaborative Spirit: The book features expressive illustrations by Marilyn Harris, alongside unique artistic contributions from notable avant-garde figures like Dick Higgins, George Brecht, and Remy Charlip.

Condition: VF in dust jacket. [J1]

$ 65.00