From Publishers Weekly
Thirty-one years after he committed suicide in his East Cleveland apartment shortly after his 26th birthday, this legendary beat poet and publisher becomes a bit less mythic with the first widely available selection of his prodigious output. Cult figure levy [sic] was a mainstay of the vital Cleveland poetry scene of the early '60's and became a T-shirted martyr to the burgeoning counterculture, due to the unrelenting prosecution of this penniless poet on obscenity charges by that city's police department. Levy's poetry still retains hard-won integrity within the side-stapled confines of the humble mimeo chapbook, but it now appears, in this crisp new edition, interesting mostly for sociological and historical reasons. The editor's lengthy introduction offers a well-researched look into the poet's short, frantic life, but levy would have been better served by a far smaller selection of his work, which would have made pieces like "Suburban Monastery Death Poem" stand out: "...only ten blocks away/ from my quiet apartment/ with its green ceramic buddhas/ & science fiction books/ unread skin magazines to be cut up for collages...." On the whole, levy's often rapid-fire delivery has enough in common with poetry slam wordslingers to draw comparisons, and some poems parallel the concrete poetics then developing in New York and Europe. Enthusiasts and scholars of the period will welcome this comprehensive look at a local oracle. (May)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Levy (194268) was one of those poets who might as well have published his work in samidzat, considering the attentionand cult statushe obtained. An autodidact who spent most of his short life in Cleveland, levy collected his poetry in small chapbooks (most produced on his own photocopier) and obscure underground journals now long forgotten. Editor Golden, a poet and screenwriter, is to be commended for putting together this omnibus volume (including some of the poets artwork) from the complex bibliographic scraps that levywho died under mysterious circumstancesleft behind. Clearly influenced by Guy Debord and the Situationist International (a 1950s updating of the Dadaist movement), levys poetry is a pastiche of personal narrative (i ask . . . / is new Carters Tavern old Carters / Tavern & are the best brews really / at the Harbor Inn?) and political harangue (prophylactics are not / revolutionary / gun control begins in the bathroom) that largely rejects formal literary convention and aims at inducing (rather than conveying) the authors perceptions within the reader. Something of a local celebrity in the late '60s, levy was tried (unsuccessfully) in Cleveland on obscenity charges and was denounced in The Plain Dealer as a drug cultist. Golden provides a good introduction to those unfamiliar with the poets life and career, but, as he admits himself, This book, despite years of pruning, is still too rough to be labeled. Still, its a nice starteven though levy remains more interesting as a character than as a poettoward the increasing attention that eventually will be paid. --
Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
