The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan by Ted Berrigan, Alice Notley, Anselm Berrigan, Edmund Berrigan - Paper

About the Book

This landmark collection brings Ted Berrigan's published and unpublished poetry together in a single authoritative volume for the first time. Edited by the poet Alice Notley, Berrigan's second wife, and their two sons, The Collected Poems demonstrates the remarkable range, power, and importance of Berrigan's work.

About the Author

Ted Berrigan (1934-1983) was the author of more than 20 books, including The Sonnets (1964); Bean Spasms, with Ron Padgett and Joe Brainard (1967); Red Wagon (1976); and A Certain Slant of Sunlight (1988). Alice Notley is the editor of two of Ted Berrigan's books, The Sonnets (2000) and A Certain Slant of Sunlight (1988). She is the author of numerous volumes of poetry, including Mysteries of Small Houses (1998) and Disobedience (2001). Anselm Berrigan is the director of the St. Mark's Poetry Project and the author of Zero Star Hotel (2002). Edmund Berrigan is a poet and songwriter and the author of Disarming Matter (1999).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chronology

THE SONNETS
GREAT STORIES OF THE CHAIR
MANY HAPPY RETURNS
IN THE EARLY MORNING RAIN
TRAIN RIDE
MEMORIAL DAY by Ted Berrigan and Anne Waldman
SHORT POEMS
RED WAGON
EASTER MONDAY
NOTHING FOR YOU
IN THE 51ST STATE
A CERTAIN SLANT OF SUNLIGHT
LAST POEMS
EARLY UNCOLLECTED POEMS

Notes
Glossary of Names
Credits
Index of Titles
Index of First Lines

Reviews

“A major volume of 20th-century American poetry.”
— Publishers Weekly

“It’s a must-have, a poetic knockout.”
— Time Out New York

“Packed with hundreds of poems long out of print as well as dozens more previously unpublished in books or magazines, The Collected Poems is not simply a book but a portable archive . . . thanks to this invaluable Collected Poems, one can hear, as never before, Ted Berrigan dreaming his dream.”
— The Nation

“The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan is not only one of the most strikingly attractive books recently published, but is also a major work of 20th-century poetry. . . . Capped by detailed notes and a glossary, The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan has indeed been edited with a care and mastery rarely seen these days. This book will be an essential piece of my collection of 20th-century literature. It is a book that will darken with the grease of my hands. There is no better way to praise it than by saying, ‘If you enjoy poetry, you should have it.’”
— Bloomsbury Review

"Comfortably intimate—classically adroit in its formal wit and invention—altogether unique yet in no way excluding, this meticulously edited edition of a master poet’s collected works gives us the defining bridge from the 'New American Poetry' of the ’50s to that poetry now contemporary on both coasts and in all conditions. No one ever recognized the people with whom he lived more particularly than did Ted Berrigan, and no one ever brought them home to a reader with such unaggressive and persistent power. This is a great, great book for all seasons of the mind and heart."—Robert Creeley

"Ted Berrigan was a leader of the New York School; his crazy energy embodied that movement and the city itself. It is wonderful to have his Collected Poems in print."—John Ashbery

"A comprehensive and carefully chronicled volume that puts Ted Berrigan in historical context as one of the most influential poets of his generation. His poems: deft, light, definitely humorous, irreverent, poignant, ‘marvelous and tough.’ The truth doing its work, ‘the great man doing the ordinary thing,’ with a quick ear and a quick tongue, revealing the personal in the universal. He gives you his full attention—‘about to be born again thinking of you.’ "—Joanne Kyger

"In a life devoted to experimental art, Ted Berrigan shaped his poetry and the space he occupied with a bold artistry based on his playful but powerfully skeptical view of the world. He wondered what might actually be captured within the pages of a book, but The Collected Poems allows us to again enjoy Ted Berrigan’s delightfully demanding presence."—Lorenzo Thomas

"A singular balance of personal-historical vision and sentiment both sweet and sour, developed within the fractured verbalism of the late twentieth century found lyric, creates in Ted Berrigan's poems the unique colors of a particularly lived (and still intensely living) ensemble of moments."—Tom Clark, author of Late Returns: A Memoir of Ted Berrigan

"Some people are just more real than others. I don't know another way to say it. Ted Berrigan is totally real and he has fashioned an important sound for all of us to listen to. He put it all together just before everyone else in his time, our time, got going. America is lucky to count him as one of its great poets."—Peter Gizzi