Hold-Outs: The Los Angeles Poetry Renaissance, 1948-1992 (Contemp North American Poetry)
“Bill Mohr offers a textured, historically variable, and theoretically alert profile of a literary milieu that is hard to keep in focus in the first place—much like Los Angeles itself. Each chapter has a singular focus, contributing to the whole from an oblique perspective. Mohr’s attention to the sociopolitical dynamic of L.A. as urban landscape provides a welcome and at times sagacious backdrop.”—Jed Rasula, author,The American Poetry Wax Museum: Reality Effects, 1940–1990“Mohr regularly brings clarity to intricate and convoluted cultural matters at the same time as he constructs useful frameworks for supporting the work of poets whose writing might otherwise go neglected. He continually finds importance in poems and in situations that he insightfully associates with a time and a place which he has summoned, with a sometimes miraculous attention to detail, from out of dusty pages and obscure documents. His in-depth knowledge of the poetry scene in Los Angeles, and the energy he brings to unearthing the post–World War II years in which that scene began to take shape, make his portrayals convincing on numerous levels, though his most important insight may be to remind us of the role poetry can play in galvanizing community awareness.”—Edward Brunner, author,Cold War Poetry