Bean argues that critical blind spots have thus far prevented either poetry or theatre criticism from making full account of the messy, dynamic art form that goes, in this book, by the name of "poets' theatre." In the absence of an always clear connection between political commitments and aesthetic choices, these theatres' dedication to "prodding, critiquing, training, and satirizing the audience" represents their most urgent agenda (9)—one strongly motivated by theories of social performance gaining traction across disciplines at the same time. Bean's fifth chapter on the poet-playwright Carla Harryman, who hails from the school of San Francisco "Language" poets, illuminates contemporary poets' theatre's "intentional rupture" of community—its emphasis on "individual identification in the shared space of the theater" (27).