The Buddhist Third Class Junk Mail Oracle: The Art and Poetry of Da Levy

Thirty-one years after he committed suicide in his East Cleveland apartment shortly after his 26th birthday, this legendary beat poet and publisher becomes a bit less mythic with the first widely available selection of his prodigious output. Cult figure levy [sic] was a mainstay of the vital Cleveland poetry scene of the early '60's and became a T-shirted martyr to the burgeoning counterculture, due to the unrelenting prosecution of this penniless poet on obscenity charges by that city's police department. Levy's poetry still retains hard-won integrity within the side-stapled confines of the humble mimeo chapbook, but it now appears, in this crisp new edition, interesting mostly for sociological and historical reasons. The editor's lengthy introduction offers a well-researched look into the poet's short, frantic life, but levy would have been better served by a far smaller selection of his work, which would have made pieces like ""Suburban Monastery Death Poem"" stand out: ""...only ten blocks away/ from my quiet apartment/ with its green ceramic buddhas/ & science fiction books/ unread skin magazines to be cut up for collages...."" On the whole, levy's often rapid-fire delivery has enough in common with poetry slam wordslingers to draw comparisons, and some poems parallel the concrete poetics then developing in New York and Europe. Enthusiasts and scholars of the period will welcome this comprehensive look at a local oracle. (May)