I PROMISE NOT TO BEHAVE

In the late seventies, Lydia Tomkiw, a precocious, inventive poet and a beguiling new wave chanteuse, blazed out from Chicago’s intertwined worlds of poetry and punk rock. Her trajectory stands as a thrilling testament to the independent do-it-yourself ethos—that the journey from Chicago’s Ukrainian Village to the inaugural volume of Best American Poetry can be made via basements and nightclubs, armed with little more than restless imagination, words, office xerox machines, and moxie. Tomkiw’s poetry is both innovative and entertaining—formally playful, rigorously perceptive, delightfully surreal, and fueled by her singular, sexy charm. Tomkiw emerged alongside a circle of immensely talented poets, mostly women, including Elaine Equi, Connie Dea no vich, and Sharon Mesmer. Collectively they invigorated American urban poetry and cleared paths for more vital, raucous, and fiercely female verse.…