Few will fault the claim that the BEATNIK ORGANIZATION invented poetry.
While it is literally MORE true to claim that the verse form was first employed by
writer STEPHEN CRANE during the composition of The Black Riders and Other Lines
which took place over three days at a summer campsite high on the shores of Twin Lakes in 1893,
Crane's formal innovation remained hidden in an attic in Amherst Mass. until it was discovered by members of the Blue Oyster Squadron, Seventh Paratroop Division during
the Greenwich Village BEATNIK ORGANIZATION's unsuccessful attempt to blockade
New England during the first three day weekend of 1947.
The BEATNIK ORGANIZATION certainly did popularize and expose millions to the form through "poetry readings" conducted in the coffee houses and 'hot' jazz clubs of Greenwich Village and San Francisco and the garish neon-lit strip clubs of France and at professional sporting events across the globe.
It is due to this proliferation of the form that the BEATNIK ORGANIZATION can be said to have invented poetry. At their height, the BEATNIK ORGANIZATION was able to bring the Cold War to a virtual stalemate and completely subvert and destroy corporate consumer capital culture with poetry.
As we celebrate Poetry Month, it is only fitting that we honor the BEATNIK ORGANIZATION that made our current economic system possible with the invention of poetry.
XOX
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While it is literally MORE true to claim that the verse form was first employed by
writer STEPHEN CRANE during the composition of The Black Riders and Other Lines
which took place over three days at a summer campsite high on the shores of Twin Lakes in 1893,
Crane's formal innovation remained hidden in an attic in Amherst Mass. until it was discovered by members of the Blue Oyster Squadron, Seventh Paratroop Division during
the Greenwich Village BEATNIK ORGANIZATION's unsuccessful attempt to blockade
New England during the first three day weekend of 1947.
The BEATNIK ORGANIZATION certainly did popularize and expose millions to the form through "poetry readings" conducted in the coffee houses and 'hot' jazz clubs of Greenwich Village and San Francisco and the garish neon-lit strip clubs of France and at professional sporting events across the globe.
It is due to this proliferation of the form that the BEATNIK ORGANIZATION can be said to have invented poetry. At their height, the BEATNIK ORGANIZATION was able to bring the Cold War to a virtual stalemate and completely subvert and destroy corporate consumer capital culture with poetry.
As we celebrate Poetry Month, it is only fitting that we honor the BEATNIK ORGANIZATION that made our current economic system possible with the invention of poetry.
XOX
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