Punk literature is a form of literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

 that emerged from the punk subculture

Punk subculture

The punk subculture includes a diverse array of ideologies, and forms of expression, including fashion, visual art, dance, literature, and film, which grew out of punk rock.-History:...

. The attitude and ideology of punk rock

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 gave rise to distinctive characteristics in the writing it manifested. It has had an influence on the popular transgressional fiction

Transgressional fiction

Transgressive fiction is a genre of literature that focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society and who break free of those confines in unusual and/or illicit ways. Because they are rebelling against the basic norms of society, protagonists of transgressional...

 literary genre and several science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 and fantasy

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 genres have been derived from it.

Journalism

The punk rock subculture has had its own underground press

Underground press

The underground press were the independently published and distributed underground papers associated with the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and other western nations....

 in the form of punk zine

Punk zine

A punk zine is a zine devoted to punk culture, most often punk rock music, bands, or the DIY punk ethic. Punk zines are the most likely place to find punk literature....

s, punk-related magazine circulations produced independently and with a highly limited reception and release. Punk zines chronicle and help to define punk in a particular area. Most punk scenes have at least one punk zine, which feature news, gossip, cultural criticism, and interviews with local or touring punk rock bands. Some punk zines take the form of perzine

Perzine

Perzines are a genre of zines; the "per" meaning "personal". Although most zines could be considered personal in that they represent the opinionated work of one person, this term describes zines that are written about one's own personal experiences, opinions and observations...

s. Important punk zines include Maximum RocknRoll

Maximum RocknRoll

Maximum rocknroll is a widely distributed, monthly not-for-profit fanzine based in San Francisco, USA. It features interviews, columns, and reviews from international contributors...

, Punk Planet

Punk Planet

Punk Planet was a 16,000 print run punk zine, based in Chicago, Illinois, that focused most of its energy on looking at punk subculture rather than punk as simply another genre of music to which teenagers listen. In addition to covering music, Punk Planet also covered visual arts and a wide...

, Cometbus, Girl Germs

Girl Germs

Girl Germs was a zine created by University of Oregon students Allison Wolfe and Molly Neuman, both members of the band Bratmobile.Feminism was influential in the Pacific Northwest in the early nineties: Girl Germs heralded an explosion of zines that accompanied the rebirth of feminism...

, Kill Your Pet Puppy

Kill Your Pet Puppy

Kill Your Pet Puppy was a UK punkzine that ran for six issues between 1979 and 1984. It was edited by Tony Drayton who had previously produced Ripped and Torn fanzine, which he started in October 1976 and for 18 issues until 1979....

, J.D.s

J.D.s

J.D.s is a queer punk zine founded in Toronto by G.B. Jones and co-published with Bruce LaBruce, that ran for eight issues from 1985 to 1991....

, Sniffin' Glue

Sniffin' Glue

Sniffin' Glue is the name of a monthly punk zine started by Mark Perry in July 1976 and released for about a year. The name is derived from a Ramones song "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue." Others that wrote for the magazine that later became well known journalists include Danny Baker.Although initial...

, Absolutely Zippo

Absolutely Zippo

Absolutely Zippo is a punk rock fanzine created by Robert Eggplant to document the happenings of the East Bay Berkeley punk scene during its heyday in the late 1980s/early 1990s...

and Punk Magazine. Punk journalists and magazine contributors include: Mykel Board

Mykel Board

Mykel Board is a regularly published journalist, especially well known for his articles in Maximumrocknroll....

, John Holmstrom

John Holmstrom

John Holmstrom is an American underground cartoonist and writer. He is best known for illustrating the covers of the Ramones albums Rocket to Russia and Road to Ruin, as well as his characters Bosko and Joe .As the founding editor of Punk Magazine at the age of 21 in late 1975, Holmstrom's work...

, Robert Eggplant

Robert Eggplant

Robert Burnett, better known as Robert Eggplant, is a writer, publisher, musician and activist from California.- background :Born in 1973, Robert Eggplant has been the editor and publisher of Absolutely Zippo fanzine since 1987. The zine has documented the East Bay punk subculture from a...

, Cristy C. Road and Aaron Cometbus

Aaron Cometbus

Aaron Elliott , better known as Aaron Cometbus, is an American drummer, lyricist, self-described "punk anthropologist," novelist, and author of punk rock zine Cometbus.-Personal life:...

.

Poetry

Punk poetry is perhaps the best recognized of traditional punk literature. Many punk poets are also musicians. Major punk poets include:Richard Hell

Richard Hell

Richard Hell is a singer, songwriter, bass guitarist, and writer.Richard Hell was an innovator of punk music and fashion. He was one of the first to spike his hair and wear torn, cut and drawn-on shirts, often held together with safety pins...

, Jim Carroll

Jim Carroll

James Dennis "Jim" Carroll was an author, poet, autobiographer, and punk musician. Carroll was best known for his 1978 autobiographical work The Basketball Diaries, which was made into the 1995 film of the same name, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Carroll.-Biography:Carroll was born to a...

, Patti Smith

Patti Smith

Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....

, John Cooper Clarke

John Cooper Clarke

John Cooper Clarke is an English performance poet who first became famous during the punk rock era of the late 1970s when he became known as a "punk poet"...

, Seething Wells

Steven Wells

Steven Wells was a British journalist, author, comedian and notable punk poet born in Swindon, Wiltshire. He is best remembered for ranting poetry and his provocative, unapologetic music journalism. In June 2006, he wrote in the Philadelphia Weekly about his treatment for Hodgkin's lymphoma...

, Raegan Butcher

Raegan Butcher

Raegan Butcher is an American poet and singer. He is known for his association with the anarchist collective CrimethInc., who published his first two books of poetry, Stone Hotel and Rusty String Quartet. According to a CrimethInc. biography, Butcher was born in Seattle, Washington and moved to...

, Attila the Stockbroker

Attila the Stockbroker

Attila the Stockbroker is a punk poet, and a folk punk musician and songwriter. He performs solo and as the leader of the band Barnstormer...

, and Natalie Flores. Jim Carroll's autobiographical works are among the first known examples of punk literature. The Medway Poets

The Medway Poets

The Medway Poets were founded in Medway, North Kent in 1979. They were an English punk based poetry performance group and later formed the core of the first Stuckists Art Group. The members were Miriam Carney, Billy Childish, Rob Earl, Bill Lewis, Sexton Ming and Charles Thomson...

, a British punk performance group, was formed in 1979, and included punk musician Billy Childish

Billy Childish

Billy Childish is an English artist, painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist...

. They are credited with influencing Tracey Emin

Tracey Emin

Tracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....

, who was associated with them as a teenager. Members of the Medway Poets later formed the Stuckists

Stuckism

Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...

 art group. Natalie Flores is a young musician and yet another punk poet.

A description by Charles Thomson

Charles Thomson (artist)

Charles Thomson is an English artist, painter, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art...

 of a Medway Poets performance contrasts with the sedate image of traditional poetry:

Bill Lewis

Bill Lewis

William "Bill" Lewis is an English artist, story-teller, poet and mythographer. He was a founder-member of The Medway Poets and of the Stuckists art group.-Early life:...

 jumped on a chair, threw his arms wide (at least once hitting his head on the ceiling) and pretended he was Jesus. Billy sprayed his poems over anyone too close to him and drank whisky excessively. Miriam told the world about her vagina. Rob and I did a joint performance posing, with little difficulty, as deranged, self-obsessed writers. Sexton finally introduced us to his girlfriend, Mildred, who turned out to be a wig on a wadge of newspaper on the end of an iron pipe.

\

Here are the words from our young punk poet, Natalie Flores
"mine turn, im the next punk poet and i want there to be more so people could so how talented we are and that we're not just immature people because we're not! We can all mature and be better people and us 'PUNKS' will be known for our poetry." November 2, 2011.

Fiction

Punk has highly influenced the contemporary cyberpunk

Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...

 literary genre

Literary genre

A literary genre is a category of literary composition. Genres may be determined by literary technique, tone, content, or even length. Genre should not be confused with age category, by which literature may be classified as either adult, young-adult, or children's. They also must not be confused...

 and its various derivatives. Punk zines have also spawned a considerable amount of punk-oriented fiction, some of which has made an impact outside of punk circles. Many of the major works of Kathy Acker

Kathy Acker

Kathy Acker was an American experimental novelist, punk poet, playwright, essayist, postmodernist and sex-positive feminist writer. She was strongly influenced by the Black Mountain School, William S...

 reflect themes of punk literature, most notably Blood and Guts in High School

Blood and Guts in High School

Blood and Guts in High School is a novel by Kathy Acker. It was written in the late 1970s and copyrighted in 1978. It traveled a complex and circuitous route to publication in 1984. It remains Acker's most popular and best-selling book. The novel is also considered a metafictional text, which is...

. Daphne Gottlieb

Daphne Gottlieb

Daphne Gottlieb is a Queer San Francisco-based Performance Poet. She is the author of Final Girl , Why Things Burn , Pelt and Kissing Dead Girls She is the editor of Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader and Fucking Daphne: Mostly True Stories...

's poetic works are similar in motif. The novelist and screenwriter Diablo Cody

Diablo Cody

Brook Busey , better known by the pen name Diablo Cody, is an American screenwriter, writer, blogger, journalist, and author. She was first known for her candid chronicling of her year as a stripper in her Pussy Ranch blog and her 2006 memoir, Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper...

 has self-identified as "punk" in the past. Love and Rockets

Love and Rockets (comics)

Love and Rockets is a black and white comic book series by Gilbert Hernandez and Jaime Hernandez, sometimes cited jointly as Los Bros Hernandez. Their brother Mario Hernandez is an occasional contributor...

is a comic with a plot involving the Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

punk scene.