The last avant-garde
Subtitle: the making of the New York School of Poets
By: by David Lehman.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 1998
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 433
Subjects: American poetry -- New York (State) -- New York -- History and criticism; Poets, American -- Homes and haunts -- New York (State) -- New York; Experimental poetry, American -- History and criticism; Avant-garde (Aesthetics) -- New York (State) -- New York; American poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism; City and town life in literature; New York (N.Y.) -- Intellectual life -- 20th century
Description: The Last Avant-Garde is a richly detailed portrait of one of the most significant movements in American arts and letters. Covering the years 1948 to 1966, the book focuses on four fast friends - John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, and James Schuyler - the poets at the center of the New York School. They were both acolytes and catalysts.

Enthralled with the bold experiments of painters like Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, each came to New York filled with the ideas that would revolutionize poetry and greatly influence writers, visual artists, musicians, and composers up to the present day.

Lehman brings to life the exhilarating creative ferment of the time and place, the relationship of great friendship to great art, and the powerful influence a group of visual artists, especially Jane Freilicher, Larry Rivers, and Fairfield Porter, had on the literary efforts of the New York School.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 409-414) and index.