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All very fascinating, Frederick, but my point of view very irritating too. What scratches my skin is the degree of stereotyping involved, as if working-class poets can only be accepted if they write on certain _explicit_ subjects and no more. Otherwise we are treated like 'uppity-blacks'. I live in a culture that is possibly the most bourgeouise in the world, ie England's, and certainly the most stable in its social hegemonies, yet at the same time it has a furiously productive working-class culture, which is allowed as long as it only channels into the likes of football. In the language-world of English English the voices of the lower-classes are written out, you are not real, publicly, in this country unless you have the right affiliations. It's not so much a case of scream and nobody hears you but scream and they pretend you haven't. Best Dave ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frederick Pollack" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2001 3:49 PM Subject: Re: query re Brugnaro > Mark Weiss wrote: > > > > US working class poets--a few who come instantly to mind: > > > > Olson, Wieners, Corso, Kerouac, Marsden Hartley, Niedecker. > > > > > > Right, yes - but I was thinking more of "proletarian poets," people who > explicitly sing, "foreground," the industrial working-class or the urban > underclass or the problems of capitalist work or oppression as such. > Another name that comes to mind is Edwin Rolfe, who fought in the > Abraham Lincoln brigade. Don't get me wrong - I like your list - > Hartley's poems about Maine fishermen should be better known, and > Niedecker is a great poet of hardscrabble work. >