Joseph Montclure March's "The Wild Party" (it's great
narative poetry, as is the companion poem, "The Set Up,"
about boxing) was written in the mid-20s. Richard Simon, of
Simon and Schuster, was just starting out in 1926, when he
wanted to publish the poem. He asked the "town censor," John
Sumner of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice,
what would happen if he did so. Sumner said he would be put
in jail. Covici published it in a limited ed. 2 years later.
There is plenty of hard boiledness in the poem, but it was
probably the "inversion" (gay and lesbian characters) that
caused the problems. It could not be said that ythe poem was
subversive of conventional morality, in that there are no
admirable characters among the decadants at the party. But
all the characters are portrayed in a way that makes them
memorable, and worth thinkinbg about. The book's quality was
recognized early, which is why avant-garde shops like the
Gotham Book Mart in NYC could get copies, for their trusted
customers.
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