List of anarchist poets

This is a list of anarchists poets, examples of their published work, and the source material in which their poetry is found.

An anarchist is a person who rejects any form of compulsory government (cf. "state") and supports its elimination. "Anarchism" can be summarised as the belief that all forms of rulership are undesirable and should be abolished.

This list is biased in favor of poets who have self-identified as anarchists. Poets who are popularly considered "anarchic", but have not specifically self-identified as anarchists, are not included.

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B

*Hugo Ball
*Fanya Baron
*Toma Bebić
*Julian Beck (1925–1985): American actor and founder of The Living Theatre. [Beck, Julian, "Preface to "The Brig", A Spotlight Dramabook.]
*Jens Bjørneboe
*Tony Blackplait
*Luther Blissett (nom de plume)
*Raegan Butcher

C

*John Cage (1912–1992): American composer. Collections of poetry include "Anarchy" (1988). [Cage self-identified as an anarchist in a 1985 interview: "I'm an anarchist. I don't know whether the adjective is pure and simple, or philosophical, or what, but I don't like government! And I don't like institutions! And I don't have any confidence in even good institutions." [http://www.ubu.com/papers/cage_montague_interview.html John Cage at Seventy: An Interview] by Stephen Montague. "American Music", Summer 1985. Ubu.com. Accessed May 24, 2007.]
*Monty Cantsin
*Lev Chernyi
*Voltairine de Cleyre (1866–1912): American activist and one of the earliest anarchists without adjectives. Works include the poem "Bastard Born", and "The Worm Turns" (1900), a collection of poetry. [de Cleyre, Voltairine (1914), "The Making of an Anarchist", "Selected Writings of Voltairine de Cleyre", Mother Earth Publishing.]
*Arthur Cravan
*Miloš Crnjanski

D

*Joseph Déjacque
*Jas H. Duke
* Robert Duncan

E

*David Edelstadt (1866–1892): Russian anarchist poet of the Yiddish language. [“A great poet and one of the finest types of Anarchist that ever lived.” - Emma Goldman, [http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/goldman/living/living1_5.html Edelstadt, David, 1866-1892] , A short biography of Russian-Jewish anarchist and editor David Edelstadt.] Works include "Albert Parsons" and "Louis Lingg".
*Jon Elia

F

*Lawrence Ferlinghetti
*Léo Ferré
*Ian Fraser (columnist)
*David D. Friedman

G

*Paul Goodman (writer)
*Pietro Gori

H

*Edith Harper
*Sadakichi Hartmann
*Joe Hill
*Harry Hooton

I

*Isidore Isou

K

*Tuli Kupferberg

L

*Joseph Labadie
*Philip Lamantia
*Philip Levine

M

*Jackson MacLow
*John Henry Mackay(1864–1933): German individualist anarchist, philosopher, writer, homosexual, and exponent of Max Steiner. Works of poetry include "Anarchy". ["I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will; Not rule, & also ruled I will not be!"–John Henry Mackay, exerpt from "Anarchy". [http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/MackayJohnHenry.htm John Henry Mackay] entry in "The Anarchist Encyclopedia". recollectionbooks.com Retrieved October 6, 2007]
* Nestor Makhno (1888–1934): Ukrainian anarcho-communist, military strategist, and commander of the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Army of Ukraine. ["As a revolutionary anarchist, I shared the life of the Ukrainian people during the revolution." Makhno, Nestor "The ABC of The Revolutionary Anarchist", "The Struggle Against the State and other essays". Translated by Paul Sharkey.] Works of poetry include "Summons". [ [http://libcom.org/library/summons-makhno Summons] Makhno, Nestor. libcom.org Retrieved October 11, 2007.]
*Erich Mühsam

N

*Jeff Nuttall

P

*Kenneth Patchen
*Benjamin Péret
*Utah Phillips
*Pi O (П О)
*Eugène Edine Pottier
*Gonzalez Prada
*Diane di Prima

R

*Dachine Rainer
*Herbert Read (1893–1968): English poet and critic of literature and art. Works include "A Song for the Spanish Anarchists" ["Thirty-five Poems" (1940)] , "The Death of Kropotkin", and "Poetry & Anarchism" (1938) [Herbert Read first expressed his anarchist philosophy in "Anarchy & Order" (1938), and later in "The Philosophy of Anarchism" (1940), and "My Anarchism" (1966).]
*Kenneth Rexroth
*Lola Ridge
*Arthur Rimbaud
*Penny Rimbaud

*Lucía Sánchez Saornil
*Louis Scutenaire
*Karl Shapiro
*Monica Sjöö
*Mikey Smith
*Gary Snyder

T

*Laurent Terzieff
*Ernst Toller

W

*Peter Lamborn Wilson
*George Woodcock
*Phyllis Webb

See also

*Anarchism and the arts
*Fraye Arbeter Shtime
* [http://www.parsermag.org Parser: New Poetry and Poetics] , a journal of anarchist poetry and poetics

Footnotes and citations