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Under the Rock Umbrella
Contemporary American Poets from 1951-1977
Edited by William Walsh
A collection of modern poets and their poems influenced by rock 'n' roll
Alan Freed (a disc jockey who coined the term rock ‘n roll) organized the Moondog Coronation ball in Cleveland, Ohio, where it was estimated 20,000 fans crashed the gates and caused the event to be cancelled. This is considered by historians to be the first rock concert and the birth of rock ‘n’ roll. A person would be hard pressed to discover a modern American poet born between 1951 and 1977 who was not influenced by popular music and the paradigm shift that occurred in the country as America was transfigured from the conservative lifestyle of Ozzie and Harriet toward Brown v. Board of Education; the Civil Rights Movement; Levitton; the Vietnam War; the assassinations of JFK, Malcom X, MLK and RFK; riots; Woodstock; the Summer of Love; Equal Rights Amendment; Kent State; Roe v. Wade; and Watergate. Afterwards, a leveling calm came over the nation then we found ourselves wearing brightly-colored leisure suits and dancing to flashing strobe lights. This culminated in the mourning of Elvis Presley’s death in 1977—when for a week the country sat paralyzed in front of the television because a portion of their youth had died—and the same three years later when John Lennon was murdered. Throughout this turbulent twenty-six-year period (the first true generation of rock/pop music, popular music, rock music, country-rock, folk rock, rock-a-billy whatever moniker is placed upon it), the music wove its way into and through the country’s sub-consciousness. The period between 1951 and 1977 were watershed years for the country and the underlying influence to amonumental degree was popular music. It was exciting, youthful, and electric. Its influence was indelible. Under the Rock Umbrella brings together the best poets influenced by this powerful era in music to allow us to examine the music of each poet’s own verse.
William Walsh is the author of Speak So I shall Know Thee: Interviews with Southern Writers (McFarland, 1990), and two collections of poetry, The Ordinary Life of a Sculptor (Sandstone, 1993), and The Conscience of My Other Being (Cherokee Publishers, 2005). His poems, shortstories, and interviews have appeared in the Bloomsbury Review, Five Points, Hunger Mountain, The Kenyon Review, Kestrel, the Michigan Quarterly Review, Poets & Writers, Tunrow, and Verse.
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