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Tag: St. Mark’s Poetry Project

Revolutionary Verses: Two Centuries of Poetry in the Village

April is National Poetry Month, a chance to celebrate the power of language, imagination, and place. Few places in America have inspired as much poetry or had as many poets call it home as Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. For over two centuries, these neighborhoods have served as both refuge and crucible for […]

Diane Burns: Native American Poet, East Village Prophet

Native American poet Diane Burns was a luminous, integral fixture of the Downtown arts scene beginning in the 1970s until her death in 2006. Her poetic body of work contains achingly earnest descriptions of her personal experiences as a Native American woman to droll, prophetic indictments of early gentrification in the East Village. Born in […]

‘Catholic Boy’ Jim Carroll and The Downtown Scene

It’s rare to become a published poet by age 16, finding yourself praised by the some of the foremost Beatnik writers.  It’s even rarer when no less than Patti Smith says that by age 21 you were ‘pretty much universally recognized as the best poet” of your generation.  Add to that having your first album […]