SOURCE: Lundquist, Sara. “The Fifth Point of a Star: Barbara Guest and The New York ‘School’ of Poets.” Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 30 (2001): 11-41.

In the following essay, Lundquist examines Guest's literary reputation and places her among the five writers who were the originators of the New York School of poets in the 1950s and 1960s.

James Schuyler wrote in 1971 (with exasperated humor) to his friend and fellow poet, Barbara Guest, about what he believed was a general but mistaken belief that only Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery, and Frank O'Hara constituted the originators and core group of New York poets. “They do not realize that the Founders of the NY school […] are not a trefoil, but a star, a five-pointed star, at the very least” (Guest papers). The star emblem allows for the happier inclusion, from his point of view, of himself and Guest in the group of...