Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century

This American Book Award-winning collection begins with Edward Sanders’s famous first “Poem from Jail,” written in 1961 during his incarceration for disrupting the christening of a nuclear submarine, and covers the twenty tumultuous years that followed. Revised and updated with sixteen new poems, this vital addition to all collections of contemporary American poetry and culture chronicles Sanders’s literary, political, and rock ‘n’ roll adventures, as well as the sensuous joys of rural and semi-rural life.

Publication date: September 1, 2009

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 6 x 9

Page count: 256 pages

ISBN: 9781566892384

In the 1960s, Edward Sanders co-founded the groundbreaking rock band, The Fugs, opened the Peace Eye Bookstore, and appeared on the cover of Life magazine. He is a classics scholar, pioneer in investigative poetics, inventor of musical instruments, publisher of The Woodstock Journal, and author of many books, including the bestselling Charles Manson exposé The Family and the ambitious, multi-volume project, America: A History in Verse. He lives in Woodstock, New York.

“[Thirsting for Peace in a Raging Century] restores Edward Sanders to his rightful place at the forefront of the poetry of his time, and reminds us that spending one’s days in active pursuit of the betterment of all life on the planet isn’t necessarily antithetical to the creation of first-rate writing.”

—San Francisco Chronicle

“If you want to know what the ’60s really were about, you’ll find out between [these] covers.”

—Kansas City Star