Serving as a primer for generational revolt and poetic expression, this collection brings readers the words, visions, and extravagant lives of bohemians, beatniks, hippies, punks, and slackers. 50 photos & illustrations. Readings.

The Outlaw Bible of American Literature will serve as a primer for generational revolt and an enduring document of the visionary tradition of authenticity and nonconformity in literature. This exuberant manifesto includes lives of the writers, on-the-scene testimony, seminal underground articles never before collected, photographs, cartoons, drawings, interviews, and, above all, the writings. Beat, Punk, Noir, Prison, Porn, Cyber, Queer, Anarchist, Blue Collar, Pulp, Sci-Fi, Utopian, Mobster, Political—all are represented. The Bible includes fiction, essays, letters, memoirs, journalism, lyrics, diaries, manifestoes, and selections from seminal film scripts, including Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, and Taxi Driver. The editors have brought together an extravagant, eclectic, searing, and unforgettable body of work, showcasing Hustlers, Mavericks, Contrarians, Rockers, Barbarians, Gangsters, Hedonists, Provocateurs, Hipsters, and Revolutionaries—all in one raucous cauldron of rebellion and otherness. This prose companion to the best-selling award-winning Outlaw Bible of American Poetry features selections from Hunter S. Thompson, Exene Cervenka, Patti Smith, Dennis Cooper, Malcolm X, Sonny Barger, Maggie Estep, Lenny Bruce, Henry Miller, R. Crumb, Philip K. Dick, Iceberg Slim, Gil Scott-Heron, Kathy Acker, Jim Carroll, Charles Mingus, Norman Mailer, and many others.

Jew Boy is Alan Kaufman's riveting memoir of being raised by a Jewish mother who survived the Holocaust. This pioneering masterpiece, the very first memoir of its kind by a member of the Second Generation is Kaufman's coming-of-age account, by turns hilarious and terrifying, written with irreverent humor and poetic introspection. Throughout the course of his memoir, Kaufman touches on the pain, guilt, and confusion that shape the lives and characters of American-born children of Holocaust survivors. Kaufman struggles to comprehend what it means to be Jewish as he deals with the demons haunting his mother and attempts to escape his wretched home life by devoting himself to high school football. He eventually hitchhikes across the country, coming face-to-face with the phantoms he fled. Taking us from the streets of the Bronx to the highways of America, the kibbutzim and Israeli army to personal rebirth in San Francisco, and finally to a final reckoning in Germany, Jew Boy shines with the universal humanity of a brilliant writer embracing the gift of life. Kaufman's fierce passion will leave no reader untouched.

During the 20th Century, France was home to many of the world’s greatest poets. This collection highlights some of the very best verse that came out of a country and century defined by war and liberation. Let Paul Auster guide you through some of the best poetry that 20th century France has to offer. “Indispensable . . . a book that everyone interested in modern poetry should have close to hand, a source of renewable delights and discoveries, a book that will long claim our attention . . . To my knowledge, no current anthology is as full and as deftly edited.”—Peter Brooks, The New York Times Book Review “One of the freshest and most exciting books of poetry to appear in a long while . . . Paul Auster has provided the best possible point of entry into this century's most influential body of poetry.”—Geoffrey O'Brien, The Village Voice

Frank, unsparing, often violent and disturbing, these poems speak in the voice of a young man trying to navigate the city he loves as he lives in the long shadow of his father's suffocating obsession with firearms. With the city of Baltimore as his backdrop, accomplished poet, author, and editor Dean Bartoli Smith offers a wrenching examination of our troubled attachments to place and the deepest wounds of the American psyche.

From the Beat poetry of the '50s to the spoken word of today, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry brings readers the words, visions, and extravagant lives of bohemians, beatniks, hippies, punks, and slackers. Like Donald Allen's epochal New American Poetry, The Outlaw Bible will serve as a primer for generational revolt and poetic expression, and is an enduring document of the visionary tradition of authenticity and nonconformity in literature. This exuberant manifesto includes lives of the poets, on-the-scene testimony, seminal underground articles never before collected, photographs of clubs and cafes, interviews, and, above all, the poems.

A multicultural selection of contemporary poems by Puerto Rican and other poets who meet at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York City.