Ed Sanders
Encyclopedia
Ed Sanders is an American poet
, singer, social activist, environmentalist
, author
and publisher and has been a longtime member of the band The Fugs
. He has been called a bridge between the Beat
and Hippie
generations.
, Missouri
. He dropped out of the University of Missouri
in 1958 and hitchhiked to New York City
's Greenwich Village
to attend New York University
. He graduated in 1964, with a degree in Greek
.
Sanders wrote his first major poem, "Poem from Jail", on toilet paper in his cell after being jailed for protesting the launch of nuclear submarines armed with nuclear missiles in 1961.
In 1962, he founded the avant-garde
journal Fuck You. Sanders opened the Peace Eye Bookstore at 383 East Tenth Street in what was then the Lower East Side
; the store became a gathering place for bohemians, writers and radicals. On January 1, 1966, police raided Peace Eye Bookstore and charged Sanders with obscenity, charges he fended off with the aid of the ACLU. Notoriety generated by the case led to his face on the February 17, 1967 cover of Life Magazine, which proclaimed him "a leader of New York's Other Culture."
In late 1964, Sanders founded The Fugs with Tuli Kupferberg
. The band broke up in 1969 and reformed in 1984.
On October 21, 1967, Sanders helped The Fugs, the San Francisco Diggers
and others in his attempt to exorcise the Pentagon
. In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War
.
In 1971, Sanders wrote The Family, a profile of the events leading up to the Tate-LaBianca murders. He attended the Manson group's murder trial, and spent time at their lair at the Spahn Movie Ranch. There have been two updated editions of The Family, the most recent in 2002. The Process Church of the Final Judgement sued Sanders's U.S. publisher for defamation over a chapter linking them with Manson's activities. The case was settled by the publisher, who removed the disputed chapter from future editions. The Process Church then sued Sanders's British publisher, but lost the suit and were forced to pay the defendent's legal fees.
Sanders is the founder of the Investigative Poetry movement. His 1976 manifesto Investigative Poetry, published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
’s City Lights Books, had an impact on investigative writing and poetry during the ensuing decades.
In the 1990s, Sanders began utilizing the principles of Investigative Poetry to create a series of book-length poems on literary figures and American History. Among the fruits of this work are Chekhov, a biography in verse of the great playwright and short-story writer; 1968: A History in Verse; and The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg. In 1998, Sanders began work on a 9-volume America, A History in Verse. The first five volumes, tracing the history of the 20th century, have been completed and published in a fully indexed CD format, over 2,000 pages in length.
Sanders received a Guggenheim Fellowship
in poetry in 1983, and a National Endowment for the Arts
Fellowship in poetry in 1987. His Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century, Selected Poems 1961-1985 won an American Book Award in 1988. He was chosen to deliver the Charles Olson Memorial Lectures at SUNY Buffalo in 1983. In 1997, he received a Writers Community residency sponsored by the YMCA
National Writer’s Voice through the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund.
In 1997 he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. In 2000 and 2003 he was Writer-in-Residence at the New York State Writers Institute in Albany, New York
.
As of 2011, Sanders lives in Woodstock, New York
, where he publishes the online Woodstock Journal with his wife of over 47 years, the writer and painter
Miriam R. Sanders. He also invents musical instruments, including the Talking Tie, the microtonal
Microlyre, and the Lisa Lyre, a musical contraption involving light-activated switches and a reproduction of Da Vinci
's Mona Lisa
.
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, singer, social activist, environmentalist
Environmentalist
An environmentalist broadly supports the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities"...
, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and publisher and has been a longtime member of the band The Fugs
The Fugs
The Fugs are a band formed in New York in late 1964 by poets Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg, with Ken Weaver on drums. Soon afterward, they were joined by Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber of the Holy Modal Rounders...
. He has been called a bridge between the Beat
Beat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
and Hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
generations.
Biography
Edward Sanders was born in Kansas CityKansas City, Missouri
Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
. He dropped out of the University of Missouri
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...
in 1958 and hitchhiked to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
to attend New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
. He graduated in 1964, with a degree in Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
.
Sanders wrote his first major poem, "Poem from Jail", on toilet paper in his cell after being jailed for protesting the launch of nuclear submarines armed with nuclear missiles in 1961.
In 1962, he founded the avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
journal Fuck You. Sanders opened the Peace Eye Bookstore at 383 East Tenth Street in what was then the Lower East Side
Lower East Side
The Lower East Side, LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is roughly bounded by Allen Street, East Houston Street, Essex Street, Canal Street, Eldridge Street, East Broadway, and Grand Street....
; the store became a gathering place for bohemians, writers and radicals. On January 1, 1966, police raided Peace Eye Bookstore and charged Sanders with obscenity, charges he fended off with the aid of the ACLU. Notoriety generated by the case led to his face on the February 17, 1967 cover of Life Magazine, which proclaimed him "a leader of New York's Other Culture."
In late 1964, Sanders founded The Fugs with Tuli Kupferberg
Tuli Kupferberg
Naphtali "Tuli" Kupferberg was an American counterculture poet, author, cartoonist, pacifist anarchist, publisher and co-founder of the band The Fugs.-Biography:...
. The band broke up in 1969 and reformed in 1984.
On October 21, 1967, Sanders helped The Fugs, the San Francisco Diggers
Diggers (theater)
The Diggers were a radical community-action group of activists and Improv actors operating from 1966–68, based in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. Their politics were such that they have sometimes been categorized as "left-wing." More accurately, they were "community anarchists"...
and others in his attempt to exorcise the Pentagon
The Pentagon
The Pentagon is the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, located in Arlington County, Virginia. As a symbol of the U.S. military, "the Pentagon" is often used metonymically to refer to the Department of Defense rather than the building itself.Designed by the American architect...
. In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
.
In 1971, Sanders wrote The Family, a profile of the events leading up to the Tate-LaBianca murders. He attended the Manson group's murder trial, and spent time at their lair at the Spahn Movie Ranch. There have been two updated editions of The Family, the most recent in 2002. The Process Church of the Final Judgement sued Sanders's U.S. publisher for defamation over a chapter linking them with Manson's activities. The case was settled by the publisher, who removed the disputed chapter from future editions. The Process Church then sued Sanders's British publisher, but lost the suit and were forced to pay the defendent's legal fees.
Sanders is the founder of the Investigative Poetry movement. His 1976 manifesto Investigative Poetry, published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is an American poet, painter, liberal activist, and the co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers...
’s City Lights Books, had an impact on investigative writing and poetry during the ensuing decades.
In the 1990s, Sanders began utilizing the principles of Investigative Poetry to create a series of book-length poems on literary figures and American History. Among the fruits of this work are Chekhov, a biography in verse of the great playwright and short-story writer; 1968: A History in Verse; and The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg. In 1998, Sanders began work on a 9-volume America, A History in Verse. The first five volumes, tracing the history of the 20th century, have been completed and published in a fully indexed CD format, over 2,000 pages in length.
Sanders received a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
in poetry in 1983, and a National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
Fellowship in poetry in 1987. His Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century, Selected Poems 1961-1985 won an American Book Award in 1988. He was chosen to deliver the Charles Olson Memorial Lectures at SUNY Buffalo in 1983. In 1997, he received a Writers Community residency sponsored by the YMCA
YMCA
The Young Men's Christian Association is a worldwide organization of more than 45 million members from 125 national federations affiliated through the World Alliance of YMCAs...
National Writer’s Voice through the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund.
In 1997 he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award. In 2000 and 2003 he was Writer-in-Residence at the New York State Writers Institute in Albany, New York
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
.
As of 2011, Sanders lives in Woodstock, New York
Woodstock, New York
Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 at the 2000 census.The Town of Woodstock is in the northern part of the county...
, where he publishes the online Woodstock Journal with his wife of over 47 years, the writer and painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
Miriam R. Sanders. He also invents musical instruments, including the Talking Tie, the microtonal
Microtonal music
Microtonal music is music using microtones—intervals of less than an equally spaced semitone. Microtonal music can also refer to music which uses intervals not found in the Western system of 12 equal intervals to the octave.-Terminology:...
Microlyre, and the Lisa Lyre, a musical contraption involving light-activated switches and a reproduction of Da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
's Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519...
.
Selected bibliography
- Poem from Jail, San Francisco: City Lights BooksCity Lights BookstoreCity Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected titles related to San Francisco culture. It was founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence...
, 1963 - Peace Eye (1966)
- Shards of God (1970)
- The Family: The Story of Charles Manson's Dune Buggy Attack Battalion (1971, New Edition, 1990)
- Egyptian Hieroglyphics (1973)
- Tales of Beatnik Glory, Volume 1 (1975)
- Investigative Poetry (1976)
- 20,000 A.D. (1976)
- Fame & Love in New York (1980)
- The Z-D Generation (1981)
- The Cutting Prow (1983)
- Hymn to Maple Syrup & Other Poems (1985)
- Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century: Selected Poems 1961–1985 (1987)
- Poems for Robin (1987)
- Tales of Beatnik Glory, Volumes 1 & 2 (1990) New York: Citadel Underground. ISBN 9780806511726
- Hymn to the Rebel Cafe (1993)
- Chekhov (1995)
- 1968: A History in Verse (1997)
- America, A History in Verse, Vol. 1 (1900–1939) (2000)
- The Poetry and Life of Allen Ginsberg, The Overlook PressThe Overlook PressThe Overlook Press is an American independent publishing house based in New York. It was formed in 1971 by Peter Mayer, who had previously worked at Avon and Penguin Books, where he was CEO from 1978 to 1998. A general-interest publisher, Overlook has over one thousand titles in print, including...
(2000) - America, A History in Verse, Vol. 2 (1940–1961) (2001)
- America, A History in Verse, Vol. 3 (1962–1970) (2004)
- "Poems for New Orleans" (2004)
- "Edward Sanders | Glyphs" The Brother In Elysium (2011)
Selected solo discography
- Sanders' Truckstop 1969
- Beer Cans on the Moon 1972
- Yiddish-speaking socialist of the Lower East Side 1991
- Songs in ancient Greek 1992
- American Bard 1996
External links
- The Woodstock Journal
- Photo Ed Sanders Performing With The Fugs, NYC, 1967 by Michael Maggid
- Feature on Ed Sanders from Paste Magazine by Matt Fink.