“The Lost Classic”

“The book that made me want to be a writer.” – William S. Burroughs

The Wild Party is a notorious (banned in Boston) narrative poem written in the mid-1920s and published in 1928 about a pair of hard living theater types, Queenie and Burrs. One day they decide to throw a party for their equally hard living friends. People get drunk. People get fucked. People cry. People fight. One guy gets shot. The cops bust up the place. The party ends. It’s a quick read with a large cast of characters. Some of whom you might even recognize as yourself or your own friends.

“The rest were simply repetitions

of the more notorious. Slim editions:

Less practiced; less hardened:

Less vicious; less strong:

Just a nice crowd trying to get along.”