In any other life I wouldn't have to ask would it be worth the effort to trace the messianic fantasy as it plays out in underground/samizdat/post-poned poetry. From Olson's I know men for whom everything matters through Watten's Total syntax and on...

Benjamin's profane illumination and practically all of Gershom Scholem's work would be at the heart of it.

The graphomanes -- Ashbery, Koch, Hejinian, Yau -- would they be central to the thesis? Probably not. But Joe Donahue, David Shapiro, Alice Notley, Bruce Andrews, Nathaniel Mackey...

I love to sketch essays and anthologies. As for actually putting together prose of any substance... did you know that spare change really does smell like blood?