Description
Book SynopsisThe contributors to this volume attempt to fill the gap in critical consideration of women writers of the Beat Generation and evaluate their lives and literary output, helping the reader appreciate their unique, diverse voices during a dynamic moment of profound cultural change.
Trade ReviewGirls Who Wore Black recovers neglected women writers who deserve more attention for their writing and for their historical role in the mid-century arts scene. This collection of essays reopens and revises the Beat canon, Beat history, and Beat poetics; it is an important contribution to literary criticism and history. -- Jennie Skerl * author of A Tawdry Place of Salvation: The Art of Jane Bowles *
Table of ContentsForeword / Ann Charters
Acknowledgments and Permissions
Visions and Revisions of the Beat Generation / Ronna C. Johnson / Nancy M. Grace
The Worm Queen Emerges: Helen Adam and the Forgotten Ballad Tradition / Kristin Prevallet
Diane di Prima: ``Nothing Is Lost; It Shines In Our Eyes'' / Anthony Libby
``And Then She Went'': Beat Departures and Feminine Transgressions in Joyce Johnson's Come and Join the Dance / Ronna C. Johnson
What I See in Now I Became Hettie Jones / Barrett Watten
Who Writes? Reading Elise Cowen's Poetry / Tony Trigilio
Snapshots, Sand Paintings, and Celluloid: Formal Considerations in the Life Writing of Women Writers from the Beat Generation / Nancy M. Grace
To Deal with Parts and Particulars: Joanne Kyger's Early Epic Poetics / Linda Russo
Revelations of Companionate Love; or, the Hurts of Women: Janine Pommy Vega's Poems to Fernando / Maria Damon
From Revolution to Creation: Beat Desire and Body Poetics in Anne Waldman's Poetry / Peter Puchek
Many Drummers, a Single Dance? / Tim Hunt
Selected Bibliography
Works Cited and Consulted
About the Contributors
Index
