In these poems we have a lyrical outburst which is tellingly organized ... The beatniks have much to learn from him. --William Carlos Williams.

"Skau covers the complete works of Corso, one of the four major Beat Generation writers (with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs) who attempted to provide an alternative to what they saw as the academic forms of literature dominating American writing through the 1940s and 1950s."--BOOK JACKET.

The Beat Hotel is a delightful chronicle of a remarkable moment in American literary history. From the Howl obscenity trial to the invention of the cut-up technique, Barry Miles's extraordinary narrative chronicles the feast of ideas that was Paris, where the Beats took awestruck audiences with Duchamp and Celine, and where some of their most important work came to fruition--Ginsberg's "Kaddish" and "To Aunt Rose"; Corso's The Happy Birthday of Death; and Burroughs's Naked Lunch. Based on firsthand accounts from diaries, letters, and many original interviews, The Beat Hotel is an intimate look at an era of spirit, dreams, and genius.

Until now, the poet Peter Orlovsky, who was Allen Ginsberg's lover for more than forty years, has been the neglected member of the Beat Generation. Because he lived in Ginsberg's shadow, his achievements were seldom noted and his contributions to literature have not been fully recognised. Now, this first collection of Orlovsky's writings traces his fascinating life in his own words. It also tells, for the first time, the intimate story of his relationship with Ginsberg. Drawn from previously unpublished journals, correspondence, photographs and poems, Peter Orlovsky, a Life in Words, begins as Orlovsky is discharged from the Army; follows the young man through years of self-doubt and details his first meeting with Ginsberg in San Francisco from his own perspective. In never-before-heard detail, Orlovsky describes his travels around the world with Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs and Corso. The book also delves into the contradictions that ultimately defined him: best known as Ginsberg's lover, Orlovsky was heterosexual and always longed to be with women; his spirit was prescient of the flower children of the sixties - especially his inclinations toward devotion and love - but in the end his use of drugs took its toll on his body and mind, silencing one of the most original and inspiring voices of his generation.

The Beats. a title that Jack Kerouac coined to define the exhausted exaltation of a generation, produced a body of works infected with a new energy. Their spontaneous, often-unedited style epitomised their own era and their famed close-knit literary community continues to inspire writers today. Barry Miles, friend and biographerof Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, was there , part of the Beat Vibe. here he gathers together some of the most influential as well as the most overlooked writers of the era. He covers the writings from The Original Beats (New York 1944-53): The San Francisco Scene (1954-57) and The Second Wave (New York 1958-60) including works from Gregory Corso, John Clellon Holmes, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Frank O'Hara, Diane di Prima and Alexander Trocchi to the king of the Beats Himself, Jack Kerouac. The result is a fascinating compendium that recaptures the unique but varied voices of the Beat generation..

By tracing the impulses of punk rock, trash film, and camp through poetry, Drew Gardner sheds light on a literary tendency that has been part of poetry’s DNA all along: uncovering the poetic values hidden in unpoetic things. This unique anthology introduces readers to collage-driven poetry that embodies the sensibilities of punk, trash, and camp in a line of writing that cuts through received taxonomies of movements, influences, and styles. Moving through the twentieth century, the poetry focuses on the unexpected, the anarchic, the demotic, the absurd, the irreverent, the coarse, the rude, and the deliriously playful. It marks an alternative strain of modernism that stretches from one side of the century to the other and includes such diverse voices as Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, Gertrude Stein, William Carlos Williams, Mina Loy, Russell Atkins, Sun Ra, and Bernadette Mayer, along with many other well-known and lesser-known poets. Readers of Ingenious Pleasures will delight in experiencing poetry as they never have before.

The second edition of Reclaiming the Sacred: The Bible in Gay and Lesbian Culture continues the groundbreaking work of the original, exploring the territory between gay/lesbian studies, literary criticism, and religious studies. This much-anticipated follow-up examines the appropriation and/or subversion of the authority of the Judeo-Christian Bible by gay and lesbian writers. The book highlights two prevalent trends in gay and lesbian literature—a transgressive approach that challenges the authority of the Bible when used as an instrument of oppression, and an appropriative technique that explores how the Bible contributes to defining gay and lesbian spirituality. Reviewers of the first edition of Reclaiming the Sacred hailed the book’s enterprise in exploring the area between literary criticism and religious studies. Whereas contemporary literary-critical theory has been slow to integrate religion and religious history into queer theory, this pioneering journal has addressed the issue from the start with a collection of thoughtful and though-provoking articles. This latest edition expands coverage to include noncanonical ancient texts, popular Victorian religious texts, and contemporary theater. Academics and lay readers interested in literary criticism, cultural studies, and religious studies will gain new insights from topics such as: religious mystery and homosexual identity in Terrence McNally’s “Corpus Christi” same-sex biblical couples in Victorian literature homoerotic texts in the Apocrypha sodomite rhetoric in a seventeenth-century Italian text Radclyffe Hall’s lesbian messiah in her 1928 novel The Well of Loneliness homosexual temptation in John Milton’s Paradise Regained Reclaiming the Sacred counteracts the manipulative and oppressive uses to which modern writers and thinkers put the Bible and the “morality” it is presumed to inscribe. An important tool for understanding the role of the Bible in gay and lesbian culture, this remarkable book makes a powerful contribution to the advancement of studies on queer sanctity.

The author's original Book of Lists is a worldwide phenomenon that has sold over 8 million copies. The Punk Book of Lists will feature approx 200 lists - culled from the historical archives and many generated by noteworthy musicians, lists have been put together by film directors, writers, actors, you name it. Punk Rock is cool and the impact has hit every hip person on the planet! Over 50 wicked caricatures of punk rock stars, by noted underground artist Cliff Mott, are peppered generously throughout the book. You don't have to be punk to love the coolest rock 'n' roll toilet-reading, time-wasting masterpiece ever! Absolutely a jewel in the canon of great music books!