Poets of the Non-Existent City:
Los Angeles in the McCarthy Era

Estelle Gershgoren Novak, ed.
University of New Mexico Press, 2003;
288pp, paperback

review by Robert Pavlik

The recent release of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations papers (1953-54) allows a fresh appraisal of that dark time in the not-distant past. A new book examining the poetry and literature of post-war Los Angeles opens yet another door to explore an era of tyranny and oppression in a free land. The timing of its release, while coincidental, takes on even greater meaning in relation to events in Washington DC and elsewhere regarding the sanctity of our personal freedoms.

Editor Estelle Gershgoren Novak weaves a complex tapestry of poetry, narrative, and essays together into an absorbing (if uneven) text. The volume is amply illustrated with original art from the two Los Angeles literary journals, the California Quarterly and Coastlines, where the poets shared their craft and from which these selections were drawn.

The contrast between the bullying, bellicose McCarthy and the LA poets is striking. Whereas the junior Senator from Wisconsin took great delight in pulverizing artists, writers and actors who dared to express an opposing viewpoint, the subjects of this study engaged in spirited debate in their hometown periodicals about their chosen art form. They battled and bickered in an open forum, yet found common ground in their hatred of oppression and injustice. They soon enough became the targets of government investigation, feared and reviled for their free expression of ideas.

The Hollywood witch-hunts by the House Un-American Activities Committee are well known; this work reveals an important poetic movement and recovers some worthwhile writers whose livelihoods also were truncated by HUAC, but whose creativity remained vital and vibrant. They should not be forgotten. Novak does their story a service by recalling their existence and sharing their art with the rest of us.