The First Cities

US-only. The Poets Press (New York) 1968 wrappered issue is the sole first edition; there is no UK first, no original-language question, and no simultaneous hardcover, so no precedence trap arises. Lorde's poems had appeared in periodicals and anthologies through the 1960s, but The First Cities is her first stand-alone book. Later Lorde volumes that reprint these poems — the collected and selected editions issued by Norton and others — are new editions rather than states of this book, and share none of its points.