Pub Crawl: A Poem of Philadelphia

This is Ernest Yatess twelfth volume of poems and the ninth volume in an ongoing series based on his wanderings through the streets of Philadelphia. Part Melville part Joyce part Bash travel diary and part Barthesian semiotics this account of a poets journey through the wilderness of postindustrial Philadelphia is much much more a search for freedom God love community and home; a meditation on the citys and nations history and on the poets own life; a tentative definition of poetic form; and an argument concerning the relationship between poetry and life. Emerson and Stevens?but also Brooks Ginsberg Kerouac and Lorde?would be smiling.