Amid the dazzling mix of grunge and bohemia that was New York immediately after World War II, John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara, James Schuyler and Kenneth Koch, four young poets on the rise, found each other.

This quartet formed the core of the New York School of Poets, and they were an integral part of the city’s literary scene at the pinnacle of its prosperity and influence. All around them was a seemingly unending procession of artistic innovations: from action painting to hard bop, Beat poetry to Pop Art. They attended the same parties and exhibitions, drank in the same bars, slept with the same people. They became a collective powered by loyalty, mutual encouragement and competition. They didn’t reject the establishment so much as they ignored it, seeking to ‘do something with language / That has never been done before.’

Evan Kindley expertly guides readers through the dorm rooms, editorial offices, gay bars, Pacific war scenes, art galleries, Fire Island summer houses and squalid apartments in which the New York School was shaped. Both nostalgic and clear-sighted, The New York School paints a striking group portrait of this coterie, highlighting fame and folly, competition and collaboration, and ultimately, enduring friendship.