Out of This World: An Anthology of the St. Mark's Poetry Project 1966-1991 [Paperback]

Anne Waldman (Editor), Allen Ginsberg (Foreword)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The three parts of Waldman's ( Helping the Dreamer ) anthology of Poetry Project writings--each representing a generation of authors--resemble a triptych portraying popular culture's metamorphoses. Part One focuses on the Project's precursors of the late 1950s and early '60s: Black Mountain innovators like Fielding Dawson--who contributes the tiny gem of an essay "On Writing Novels"--and New York School writers like Frank O'Hara. Part Two begins in 1966 with the Project proper. Ed Sanders's poem recalls the "Yiddish-speaking socialists of the Lower East Side" whose Old Left politics the Project inherited. Although Waldman errs on the side of inclusivity, the writing she culls from the latest generation is nearly all galvanizing and diverse. With superb insight and precision, Mary Caponegro describes a village's collective sigh over the death of a member as a "clearing of the throat to open the way for gossip." Maggie Dubris's "Welcome to WillieWorld" seems a surreal depiction of urban life, but the contributors' notes clarify that it is more a transcription of Dubris's actual experience as a New York City paramedic, a piece very much out of this world.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The Poetry Project at St. Mark's has been the de facto headquarters of the East Coast avant-garde for 25 years. Largely composed of work from the project's magazine The World , this anthology "celebrates the 'outrider' tradition," including selections from progenitors like Creeley, Corso, and Guest through unclassifiables such as Alice Notley and John Yau, to today's best-known language poets. Helen Adam's strict ballads are within page-flipping distance of Quincy Troupe's verbal jazz riffs and John Giorno's echoic litanies. What's Donald Hall doing here? Perhaps he was invited by Lou Reed. This book is huge and acceptably weird proof that there's more going on in poetry than the academy tells us.
- Fred Muratori, Cornell Univ. Lib., Ithaca, N.Y.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 95 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; 1st edition (November 26, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517566818
• ISBN-13: 978-0517566817
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,281,200 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Out of Print? Out of my Mind!, April 13, 2000

By 

courtney J angermeier - See all my reviews

This review is from: Out of This World: An Anthology of the St. Mark's Poetry Project 1966-1991 (Paperback)

To Whom It May Concern: Buy this book! Or borrow it your literary neighbor, or steal it from the library; anything, just get you hands on it. Out of This World is a comprehensive lexicon of of the life of the infamous St. Mark's in the Bowery Poetry Project. From Ginsberg to Ashberry, from O'Hara to St. Francis, from the down and dirty free verse of Paul Beatty and Jim Carroll to the the luminous prose of Mary Montenegro, this book is finger lickin' good. While it is dissappointing at times not to have more that one or two pieces by each poet, it gives you a scope that few works do. Elegantly edited and sequenced by Anne Waldman, the project's long-time director, Out of This World is a five-pound gem worth dodging library security or the wait for an out of print copy. Dig it.