The Poets' Encyclopedia is an English-language poetical anthology, covering the literary, art and music worlds of New York City in the 1970s. 225 poets, artists, musicians and novelists transform the world's basic knowledge. Imagination trumps fact. John Cage writes on mushrooms, Richard Kostelanetz on gimmicks, Jackie Curtis on B-Girls, Pier Paolo Pasolini on reality, Daniel Berrigan on Israel, Allen Ginsberg on junk mail, Irene Dogmatic on junk food, John Chamberlain on junk sculpture, and William S. Burroughs on heroin, and the surrealist poet Russell Edson. The book also includes illustrations by Romare Bearden.