The essays in this book focus attention on the vibrant New York poetry scene of the 1960s and '70s, on the poets who came after what is now known as the New York School. Bernadette Mayer, Hannah Weiner, Clark Coolidge, Anne Waldman, and Ron Padgett are just some of the poets who extended the line that John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, and James Schuyler started.

In Don't Ever Get Famous, a range of writers and scholars examine the cultural, sociological, and historical contexts of this wildly diverse group of writers. These poets, many of whom are still writing today, changed American poetry forever, and this book provides the first large-scale consideration of their work.