Jack Spicer was a San Francisco poet who rejected the traditional centers for poetry--academia and the established publishing houses, using the phrase "English Department" as a derogatory description for analytical approaches to poetry and having his own work published mostly by little magazines and small presses. Because he disliked providing biographical information about himself, little has been written about his life, and his reputation has been limited for the most part to the West Coast. In recent years, however, there has been some critical recognition of his work.

Dissatisfied with traditional poetry, Spicer experimented with language, form, and composition method. The diction in his poetry fluctuates between the commonplace and the sophisticated (the simple diction dominates), while occasionally he strains the limits of language. He was interested in devising new forms for poetry, but he was not averse to using traditional forms, such as the epic, so long...