Rating: 
Summary: A Mixed Bag
Review: I have mixed feelings about this collection of "outlaw" poets, because I live outside the U.S. and have lived in countryside China where the government really doesn't care if you live or die or spew green foam from both ends--meaning what? No safety nets like clinics with clean needles and not even a job at Macdonald's, or a flop in a salvation army cot but begging and starving to death and people stepping over your body as it blackens in the street. That's why so much of what these new outlaws say in their street poetry rings slightly hollow to me. (that's not to say that America doesn't mangle and murder its children, but there are--admittedly--a few more ledges to land on in the U.S. before one dives into societal hell.) And of course, among these outlaws is at least one college professor who is as much of an outlaw as my aunt is, and yet another who has a pretty good middle class house and a pension and a wife who indulges his writing the spare, misogynistic exercises he calls poems, and then there are the entertainers and recording artists like Bob Dylan who was never an outlaw to begin with and has made the fortune of record producers and record companies, not to mention his own. So who's kidding whom with this title? Granted, the book is seeded with fine--even great poems like Michael Lally's "My Life"--and legendary names like Bob Kaufman, Jack Hirschman and Woody Guthrie, but for every one of those poems and every one of those names there are a dozen from the posers and the wannabes--and yes, the cry-babies who want to point the finger at everyone but themselves and say a dirty word or two in the bargain to be "shocking" in a world that is now way past shock. That's why a great part of this book is a cookie-cutter yawn, not even as interesting as a midnight Veg-O-Matic commercial. In fact if many of these folks were given a spot on your television you'd probably turn them off--not from shock, not from the gut-wrenching pain they want to share with you, or from the intensity of their vision of the Truth that they've gathered from their lives with their torn and bleeding fingers, but out of sheer boredom. These are the middle-class kids who grew up reading City Lights Pocket Poets and Beat Hagiographies and wanted to find their mugs in the "Left to Right" shots in the middle of those books. This is P.C. territory we're treading in too, so we have to make sure we "respect" (meaning accept uncritically--(and please remember to clap)) everyone and everything here and leave our common sense hanging on the hat rack, thank you. Even some of the fine poets like Joy Harjo and Simon Ortiz who are represented here contributed not so great poems, and lent their names rather than their talents to this phone-book sized effort. So what? Maybe a book of half the number of pages would have been better. Maybe a more representative selection from the best poets? Who knows?
Rating: 
Summary: A Poetry Book Worth Owning...
Review: i met alan kaufman when he came to alexander book company in SF earlier this spring to promote the outlaw bible of american poetry. he was taking requests and selections from the book and his voice sounded like someone who fit the outlaw description, like someone who had lived and experienced the things he wrote... i loved the poems by bob kaufman, a beat poet icon and creator of the term "beatnik," his work is full of jazz, mysticism, and absurdism...the other beat luminaries, kerouac, ginsberg, and others are good too, but bob kaufman stands out, because he is the least known of the beat poets. I also enjoyed Jim Carroll's poems, he came to SF recently, and while i was unable to make his reading, i read his works, imagining that frail, dovelike, yet masterful voice, spellbinding me with his words...some of the poems here are filler, the book could've done without the james dean poem or the monologue by richard pryor, and while i like tupac as a rapper, he's only average as a poet... overall, a very masterful work, this will show people that poetry is not confined to the stale, lifeless prison called "academia."
Rating: 
Summary: Poetry for the immature
Review: I purchased this book sometime in high school, before I had really read any substantial amount of poetry. Looking back on it now, I can only be thankful I have developed as much as I have since then. The poetry in this book is, with very few exceptions, almost entirely devoid of intelligence and artifice. This is the unfortunate legacy of the Beat poets: words without form, pages full of "remarks" about politics and processed Zen rather than literature. Granted, the Beats themselves were never all that different, though at least Ginsberg and Snyder produced a few interesting pieces in their earlier years.
To anyone who wants to read *real* "outlaw American poetry", go back to Whitman, Dickinson, Gertrude Stein, W.C. Williams (one of the few great poets represented in this book), early Eliot, and John Ashbery, none of whom would be allowed into such a book because they are too "mainstream". No matter. They will last, the poets in this book won't.
Rating:
Summary: Rich Motherload to Mine in Outlaw Bible
Review: I want to thank the editors who brought this collection to print. When I read other peoples poetry it pushes me further in the creative experience and this collection has really wowed me and gave me so much food for thought. There are too many people who are excellent, but I will take a stab at one poem which struck my attention because of a reviewer of this book here on Amazon who has some poetry in this volume. I would like to thank Jim Chandler for his poem Jailhouse Dreams #1.......as it was the inspiration for a new poem that I penned after reading his chain gang poem. I have the good fortune to have a poem in this collection and congratulate all the poets who have contributed to this large, important body of work. The number of reviews shows in itself the interest in this collection. I encourage other poets in this collection to add to this list of reviews as well as READERS to share their thoughts and I wish to thank Amazon.com for this opportunity to work as a networking agent to bring people's thoughts and hearts together.......My e-mail address is vytautasp@aol.com
Rating:
Summary: wow!
Review: I've been wallowing in this book for a week and haven't had this much fun since Donald Allen's New American Poetry came out. One unbelievable omission, though: Peter Orlovsky! (Who are these know-nothing Kirkus folks? Get rid of 'em!)
Rating:
Summary: Rocket writing!
Review: If you want to know where the next great writers are coming from, read this book!
Rating:
Summary: Melange Faux Pa
Review: Is to current radical poetry what Ronald Reagan movies were to Amerikan idiom, laced with pop-star blather and stage-pyrotecnics. More like a trip to The Gap than the lower east side. Maybe Spielberg's outlaws, but none of the outlaws I know are reading it. Cheers.
Rating:
Summary: Melange Faux Pa
Review: Is to current radical poetry what Ronald Reagan movies were to Amerikan idiom, laced with pop-star blather and stage-pyrotecnics. More like a trip to The Gap than the lower east side. Maybe Spielberg's outlaws, but none of the outlaws I know are reading it. Cheers.
Rating:
Summary: Outlaw Bible-a poetry masterpiece
Review: Kaufman and Griffin are geniuses with the talent they have put together in the book. It has given me hours of entertainment with the different styles of poetry. This is a must buy for anyone that wants to read poetry that cuts to the inner soul of the writers.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: Man, this is a fine book of poetry! I've never heard of some of these people, but they write some fine stuff nonetheless. This rocks!
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