What the hell does that mean? Is he a poet or an author? Poetry is fine, when you want to read poetry. I don't want to read poetry when I want to read an introduction to a SF book.

I always considered John Brunner's The Shockwave Rider, from 1975, to be the first cyberpunk novel. At least it's set in a near-future dystopia, with a hax0r protagonist. Also, although it wasn't SF, and I don't have the author's name handy, I once read a novel from the '70s called "The Programmer" which featured a disgruntled S/360 code cranker leaving behind his job in the city's billing department for a life of computer crime.

Of the earliest cyberpunk authors, John Shirley usually got the least attention; his work was less mainstream, more dark and disturbing.

His work isn't poetry, but if put to music, it would have a menacing, snarling guitar in the background.

City Come A-Walkin' was written in 1980, and it was new and different then.

John Brunner is spooky good, "The Sheep Look Up" is the most chilling dystopia I think I've ever read. It really shows how people could have things creep up on them in a very bad way (boiling frog syndrome).

And I agree about The Schockwave Rider, awesome work raising many important questions.