''The Poets' Encyclopedia'' is an
English-language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...
poetical anthology, covering the literary, art and music worlds of
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in the 1970s. 225 poets, artists, musicians and novelists transform the world's basic knowledge. Imagination trumps fact.
John Cage
John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...
writes on
mushrooms
A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing Sporocarp (fungi), fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. ''Toadstool'' generally denotes one poisonous to humans.
The standard for the na ...
,
Richard Kostelanetz
Richard Cory Kostelanetz (born May 14, 1940) is an American artist, author, and critic.
Birth and Education
Kostelanetz was born to Boris Kostelanetz and Ethel Cory and is the nephew of the conductor Andre Kostelanetz. He has a B.A. (1962) from ...
on gimmicks,
Jackie Curtis
Jackie Curtis (February 19, 1947 – May 15, 1985) was an American actress, writer, singer, and Warhol superstar.
Early life and career
Jackie Curtis was born in New York City to John Holder and Jenevive Uglialoro. She had one sibling, half-br ...
on B-Girls,
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini (; 5 March 1922 – 2 November 1975) was an Italian poet, filmmaker, writer and intellectual who also distinguished himself as a journalist, novelist, translator, playwright, visual artist and actor. He is considered one of ...
on reality,
Daniel Berrigan
Daniel Joseph Berrigan (May 9, 1921 – April 30, 2016) was an American Jesuit priest, anti-war activist, Christian pacifist, playwright, poet, and author.
Berrigan's active protest against the Vietnam War earned him both scorn and admir ...
on
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
,
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
on
junk mail, Irene Dogmatic on
junk food
"Junk food" is a term used to describe food that is high in calories from sugar and/or fat, and possibly also sodium, but with little dietary fiber, protein, vitamins, minerals, or other important forms of nutritional value. It is also known as HF ...
, John Chamberlain on
junk sculpture, and
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...
on
heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...
. ''The New York Times'' said, it "includes Everything (page 82) and Nothing (page 196)."
Unmuzzled OX, the publisher of ''The Poets' Encyclopedia'', attempted as a kind of sequel ''The Poets' Guide to Canada''. (''Unmuzzled OX'' is edited in the summers from Kingston, Ontario.) Although
George Bowering
George Harry Bowering, (born December 1, 1935) is a prolific Canadian novelist, poet, historian, and biographer. He was the first Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate.
He was born in Penticton, British Columbia, and raised in the nearby town o ...
,
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood (born November 18, 1939) is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of non-fiction, nin ...
,
Sonja Skarstedt
Sonja Skarstedt (October 2, 1960 – July 31, 2009) was a Canadian poet, short story, playwright writer, painter and illustrator. Born in Montreal, Quebec, she was the founder and former editor of the literary magazine '' Zymergy, 1987-1991'', and ...
and other prominent Canadian poets wrote articles, the issue devolved into a jokey conversation between New Yorkers, pseudonymous New Yorkers, and the surrealist poet Russell Edson.
Cultural history of New York City
Poetry anthologies
Encyclopedias of literature
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