Poetry by Edward Sanders, with an introduction by Joanne Kyger

September 1, 2009 • 6 x 9 • 256 pages • 978-1-56689-234-6

The major work from a legend of Beat poetry, Yippee politics, and rock ’n’ roll.

Let’s Not Keep Fighting the Trojan War picks up where the simultaneously reissued, American Book Award-winning collection, Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century, left off and spans more than two decades. In this collection, Edward Sanders animates the whole of human history—breathing new life into ancient stories, celebrating artists and activists, telling tales of bohemian escapades, eulogizing friends and politicians, and lamenting the follies that have led us to war time and again. With exuberant pragmatism and visionary scholarship, Sanders continues to mark the way forward for poets and peacemakers, rock ‘n’ rollers, and revolutionaries.

About the Author

In the 1960s, Edward Sanders co-founded the groundbreaking rock band, The Fugs, opened the Peace Eye Bookstore, and appeared on the cover of Life magazine. He is a classics scholar, pioneer in investigative poetics, inventor of musical instruments, publisher of the Woodstock Journal, and author of many books, including the bestselling Charles Manson exposé The Family and the ambitious, multi-volume project, America: A History in Verse. He lives in Woodstock, New York.

Joanne Kyger has taught at the New College of California in San Francisco and at the Naropa University Summer Writing Program. She has published more than twenty books, including the recent As Ever: Selected Poems, and is a recipient of the PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Award in poetry.

Reviews

“In Sanders’ poetry we find . . . one of the clearest and most necessary bodies of work still being written today.” —Poetry Project Newsletter

“Sanders represents a sense of cultural immanence running from Archilochus and Aeschylus to Olson and Ginsberg, Blackburn and Berrigan, while his interest in ‘investigative poetry’ allows him to make relevant to his art a channel-surfer’s cable lineup of contemporary concerns, from black holes to Masons to Mason to health-care reform to toxic-waste disposal to terrorism. He is, Emerson might have said, ‘man thinking,’ the scholar who admits no boundaries to the desire for knowledge, no matter how audacious the crossing.” —Antioch Review

“One marvels at [Edward Sander’s] synergetic fusion of his poetic calling and his laudable career as an activist. The power of the righteous utterance to mutate reality is an article of faith for the countercultural leader, who famously led chants to exorcise the Pentagon. His lyrics ring forth optimism.” —Chronogram

“Far-ranging, historically acute, and painfully beautiful.” —Bob Holman, About.com

“Ebullient and explosive, an irreverent and highly idiosyncratic ride through the recent years of our diminishing republic. (It’s also very funny.) . . . Raw and cantankerous, yet filled with a mystic energy and power. . . . This is poetic prophecy in the tradition of Blake and Ginsberg.” —Chris Faatz, Powell’s Books

“Sanders is the poet-maestro of American history.” —Michael McClure

“This book is a balm for our times, simply because, in an era of increasing impatience and distraction, Sanders inspires with his unwavering focus on (and love for) humanity.” —John Peck, Diesel Bookstore

Edward Sanders

Let's Not Keep Fighting the Trojan War