Subduing Demons in America: Selected Poems, 1962-2007

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Giorno first rose to fame in New York in the early 1960s as the star of Warhol's Sleep. Associated with key 1960s avant garde figures such as Ginsberg, Burroughs, Rauschenberg, and Johns, Giorno was an early pioneer of multimedia poetry through Giorno Poetry Systems, which also distributed a who's who of the American underground from Patti Smith to Sonic Youth. Giorno's use of transgressive material and in-your-face amplified delivery was also a key influence on punk/new wave pioneers such as Suicide, Throbbing Gristle, and Black Flag. Not just a poet but a sexual, spiritual, and political radical, Giorno helped pioneer the open celebration of queer sexuality in poetry in the 1960s. His AIDS Treatment Project, begun in 1984, set the bar for action in the AIDS crisis.

Subduing Demons in America offers the best of Giorno's revolutionary poetry, from his striking Pop Art-influenced poems of the 1960s to the psychedelic, echo-laden, multitracked cut-ups of the 1970s with their explosive configurations of queer sex, spiritual practice, and the bohemian Good Life. Also here are Giorno's pared-down punk/hip-hop performance poems from the 1980s, as well as new but still unrepentant commentaries on the unfolding 21st century. Whether written, performed, recorded, filmed, or exhibited, Giorno's work is a shining jewel in the ongoing revolution of poetry and language in contemporary life.