Poetry
Punk poetry is perhaps the best recognized of traditional punk literature. Many punk poets are also musicians. Major punk poets include:Richard Hell, Jim Carroll, Patti Smith, John Cooper Clarke, Seething Wells, Raegan Butcher, and Attila the Stockbroker. Jim Carroll's autobiographical works are among the first known examples of punk literature. The Medway Poets, a British punk performance group, was formed in 1979, and included punk musician Billy Childish. They are credited with influencing Tracey Emin, who was associated with them as a teenager. Members of the Medway Poets later formed the Stuckists art group.
A description by Charles Thomson of a Medway Poets performance contrasts with the sedate image of traditional poetry:
Bill Lewis 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.
Read more about this topic: Punk Literature
Famous quotes containing the word poetry:
“Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A really great poet is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Finally, in the last year of her age,
Having attained a present blessedness,
She said poetry and apotheosis are one.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)