Note on "Investigative Poetry" and ‘the public performances of investigative poets’

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Around 1975 Ed Sanders included some observations on ‘the public performances of investigative poets’ as part of a lecture prepared for sessions at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. The lecture, which called on poets to “again assume responsibility for the description of history,” became the basis for Investigative Poetry, City Lights, 1976, and a signpost for Sanders’ subsequent work – a steady stream of sidereal poetry marked recently by a four volume verse history of 20th Century America. Educated in Greek at NYU [1964], Sanders saw special lyric possibilities in combining investigation, poetry, and electronic musical instruments.

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