“Poetry Loves Poetry” was not my first anthology of L.A. poets, but it is the one that most people are familiar with. In part, this is because the scene in L.A. when I published THE STREETS INSIDE, in 1978, was still benefitting from the plethora of bookstores that were willing to sell poetry books. By 1985, several of those stores were gone. In particular, Papa Bach and Intellectuals & Liars had closed. As one can see from the flyer I made for “PLP,” there were still a considerable number of literary bookstores in Los Angeles in the middle of the 1980s.
But not having any magazine coming out of Beyond Baroque to review it, or a magazine such as BACHY or INVISIBLE CITY to conduct a discussion of its premises and contents, PLP simply didn’t get the attention it deserved. I am grateful to Sharon Doubiago for a review she wrote in ELECTRUM magazine as well as one that appeared in POETRY FLASH by Joe Safdie.
And many thanks go out to Sheree Levin for her portfolio of L.A. poets, which appeared at the end of the volume.
About Bill Mohr