The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry is a collection of poems from an assorted list of poet

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...

s. First published in 1999, the collection features work from several notable poet

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...

s, including Jack Micheline

Jack Micheline

Jack Micheline , born Harold Martin Silver, was an American painter and poet from the San Francisco Bay Area. His name is synonymous with street artists, underground writers, and "outlaw" poets...

, Harold Norse

Harold Norse

Harold Norse was an American writer who created a body of work using the American idiom of everyday language and images. One of the expatriate artists of the Beat generation, Norse was widely published and anthologized.- Life :Born Harold Rosen to an unmarried Lithuanian Jewish immigrant in Brooklyn...

, A.D. Winans, David Trinidad

David Trinidad

-Biography:Trinidad was born in Los Angeles, California. In the early 1980s, he was one of a group of poets who were active at the Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center in Venice, California. Other members of this group included Dennis Cooper, Bob Flanagan, and Amy Gerstler. As editor of Sherwood...

, Jim Chandler

Jim Chandler

Jimmy Lee "Jim" Chandler is a Southern poet and novelist from Tennessee. Chandler's poetry evolved from the post-beat generation through the underground scene. His 276-page poetry collection Smoke & Thunder, was published in 2003...

, 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:...

, D.A. Levy, Bob Kaufman

Bob Kaufman

Bob Kaufman , born Robert Garnell Kaufman, was an American Beat poet and surrealist inspired by jazz music. In France, where his poetry had a large following, he was known as the "American Rimbaud."-Biography:...

, David Lerner

David Lerner

David Lerner was an American renegade poet born in New York City. Lerner came from a family of Russian-Jewish renegades, and grew up as a so-called "red-diaper baby". Lerner published numerous articles as a journalist, including material on the Russian singer and poet Vladimir Vysotsky...

, Richard Brautigan

Richard Brautigan

Richard Gary Brautigan was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. His work often employs black comedy, parody, and satire. He is best known for his 1967 novel Trout Fishing in America.- Early life :...

, Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg

Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...

, Tom Waits

Tom Waits

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...

, William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs

William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

, Ken Kesey

Ken Kesey

Kenneth Elton "Ken" Kesey was an American author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s. "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a...

, and Rebecca Fransway

Rebecca Fransway

Rebecca Fransway is an American author and poet.-Biography:Born in San Pedro, California, Fransway was the oldest of six children born to Horace Robert Davis and Vernita Ethel Webster Davis. Growing up in California, she attended public schools in Sacramento and Atascadero, and studied English at...

, among others.

The collection was edited by Alan Kaufman

Alan Kaufman

Alan Kaufman is an American novelist, memoirist and poet who was instrumental in the development of the Spoken Word movement in literature. He is the author of the memoir Jew Boy, the novel Matches, and is listed as editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry.He is also listed as co-editor of The...

 and S.A. Griffin.

'Outlaw Poets'

Outlaw Poets is a term of endearment used in reference to poet

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...

s whose work is featured in the Outlaw Bible. The following (incomplete) list of traits are characteristic of such poets:

• anti-authoritarian
  Anti-authoritarian
  Anti-authoritarianism is opposition to authoritarianism, which is defined as a "political doctrine advocating the principle of absolute rule: absolutism, autocracy, despotism, dictatorship, totalitarianism." Anti-authoritarians usually believe in full equality before the law and strong civil...
  
   personality;
• anti-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...
  
   activists known for their anti-war
  Anti-war
  An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
  
   rhymes (It should be noted that many poets write about Vietnam
  Vietnam
  Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
  
   who are by no means Outlaw Poets.
• Elder poets that gained notoriety via unconventional forms

External links

• An Outlaw Poet Manifesto
• "Outlaw" poets hog the mike article on subject at Salon.com
  Salon.com
  Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...