Poetry with Purpose: Thematic Through Lines in Special Collections
July 16th, 2026Poetry is occasionally seen as a “sillier” form of writing due to its limited boundaries and subjective meanings. However, as a form of revolution and rebellion, it remains a constant in the zeitgeist of American literary movements. By highlighting a handful of Special Collections material published by Beat poets, a fellow Kansan, and a Slavic studies scholar, I hope to shine a bit more light on the impactful messaging that came from different, often subversive, poetry collections!
The first work published in this list, Daisy Aldan’s A New Folder (1959) expresses the desire to reflect American poets’ complicated identity through their writing. The thematic subject for this collection is explained by Wallace Fowlie in his foreword. Fowlie writes that the book testifies to the “continuing vitality of American poetry” (1). With only the common thread of nationality, each poem in this collection provokes Fowlie’s quote: “The artists of a society are its only individuals, and society, by nature and definition, is opposed to individuals” (1). Complemented by American abstract artists like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Franz Kline, A New Folder pinpoints an incredibly specific time in Western art and culture. A product of Beat Generation ideals, the volume concentrates anti-conformist beliefs in relation to human expression and creation through the use of art and poetry.
Composed and published by David Rattray, Lami (1965) memorializes the life of Alden Van Buskirk through a compilation of his poetry, which explores life in fragments leading up to his death in 1961. In his introduction, Allen Ginsberg describes the collection as a “whole witty – somber – book” that “consists of 91 pages and makes a complete statement of Person” (1). The reader is given a collection that feels raw and intimate as the posthumous publication reflects a beloved figure in the Beatnik subculture of the ’60s. The title is accompanied by many definitions as “Lami” is cited to mean “tenement elf but above all guiding genie”; “American lama descended from golden age ‘lambish folke’”; and “also l’ami” (Rattray, Table of Contents). Marked as a collection of poetry that encapsulates one man’s being, Van Buskirk’s mortality and the thematic presence of grief for one’s own life finds a certain intimacy within Lami that holds through to the end.
The front cover of (left) and the first page of the poem “Abomunist Manifesto” in (right) Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness by Bob Kaufman, 1965. Call Number: LE 1965 B16. Click images to enlarge.
A personal favorite of mine from Spencer’s collection, Bob Kaufman’s Solitudes Crowded with Loneliness (1965) is a tribute to social protest and, as the title suggests, the fight of the lonely subject amongst a crowd. Held at the back of Solitudes Crowded is a broadside of Kaufman’s “Abomunist Manifesto,” which appropriates the Communist Manifesto. Kaufman modifies the language of Marx and Engels with provocative, humorous statements designed to reflect his own radicalism within the counterculture of the 1960s. An “abomunist” is defined by Kaufman as a noun meaning “one who avows Abomunism, disavowing everything else, especially butterscotch” (81). Accompanying political rhetoric, the collection is rich with Kaufman’s “prophetic verse” in which he was known to have written with inspiration “from the improvisatory bebop jazz featured at the Beats’ favorite North Beach watering holes” [1]. The absurdity of Kaufman’s writing subverts expectation as he dedicates himself to the protest of a societal collective.
The front cover (left) and section (right) of RADI OS by Ronald Johnson, 1977. Call Number: C23084. Click images to enlarge.
Comparatively a much less political piece than the previous examples, Ronald Johnson’s RADI OS (1977) uses abstract design for the art and structure of his poetry. Erasure poetry is made by taking an already written text and erasing the words to create new poetry. As one of the earliest poets to create erasure poetry – one with Kansas roots, no less – Johnson takes John Milton’s Paradise Lost and transforms its text to express his own thematic subject and purpose. The genius of Johnson’s originality and meaning are enforced by Guy Davenport’s afterword, with its notes on the complex and thoughtful use of negative space and the ordering of each page. A particularly favorite insight of mine that Davenport says in his afterword: “What the artist seems to create has, as the artist is the first to appreciate and acknowledge, already been created. Design and arrangement are the artist’s passion. Place is all” (96). Davenport’s words ring true throughout this list, finding creation as a backbone to what makes an artist, and how that creation translates into meaning whether that is political, personal, or both.
Finally, at first glance McClelland’s 1978 collection dedicated wholly to the existence of a brooding, bloodsucking myth has a comedic air to it. The 21st-century vampire has become more of an angsty, sparkling romantic lead than the seductive, psychological, and aristocratic figure that erupted from authors like Polidori, Le Fanu, and Stoker. Published in 1978 and prefaced by Robert Kelly, The Dracula Poems conceptualize the identity of “poet” as a vampire/monster who is uniquely open to interpretation by language. McClelland’s background in Slavic studies with a concentration in anthropology as well as linguistics offers more to every poem as they attempt to convey metaphorical wonderings of a monster “preserved and isolated at once” in the literary canon [2]. Still remaining an enjoyable and creative collection of well-crafted poetry, McClelland’s book suffuses a popular figure with identity, making the vampire a much more personal beast.
Theo McKay
Public Services student assistant
[1] Biography of Bob Kaufman by the Academy of American Poets
