Publisher's Synopsis
Nonfiction. Poetry History and Criticism. From the back jacket: "In the late 1970s a group of San Francisco poets set out self-consciously and methodically in an insurrection of the Yahoos to attack the establishment (academic poets like Robert Lowell, William Stafford, Poetry magazine, the Prairie School, etc.) and promote themselves as a new alternative. They had a Stalinist view of the bourgeoisie and wanted to eradicate the personality from poetry. Yet they yearned for acceptance from the elders, quoting Zukofsky while tearing down their mentors like Ted Berrigan. The threat of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E P=O=E=T=R=Y appeared overnight. They co-opted reading series such as New Langton Street and Small Press Traffic, promoting a unified front. It was a blatant piece of Junior High bullying and led to a strong reaction from those who refused to join cliques. The voice of the counter-insurgency was a quick and dirty mimeo magazine called LIFE OF CRIME. Editors Steve Lavoie and Pat Nolan enlisted the best satirists in the poetry world (including Andrei Codrescu and Dave Morice) to vilify this vain clique. Others (Tom Clark, David Benedetti, Alastair Johnston) quickly joined the fray. This book includes the complete text of LIFE OF CRIME (Newsletter of the Black Bart Poetry Society: For those who think poetry is a crime). It is guaranteed to turn the stomach of the most prurient literary necrophile."
