The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan Read Free

detail, specific 60s references, philosophy presented lightly, and an under-current of tragedy. It is dedicated to Anne Kepler—the Anne of
The Sonnets
, who died in a fire set by an arsonist while Ted was writing the poem; the book itself is dedicated to Anne Kepler and to Frank O’Hara, who died in 1966.
    Another larger poem in
Many Happy Returns
is the collaged (and visually collage-like) “Bean Spasms,” dated 1966. It was written in conjunction with images by George Schneeman and first published in the book
Bean Spasms
, a collaborative volume involving Ted, the poet Ron Padgett, and the artist Joe Brainard. Ted later incorporated into other books the work from
Bean Spasms
that was uniquely by himself.
The Seventies
    The late 60s mark Ted’s departure from New York, and his work from the early 70s is replete with references from other locales. It is significant that Ted’s first book of the 70s,
In the Early Morning Rain
, was published by Cape Goliard, a British publisher.
    In the Early Morning Rain
made lavish use of drawings (now lost) by George Schneeman to create spaciousness and to emphasize groupings. The book is a mix of work in older styles employing found materials, chance methods, transliteration, the form of
The Sonnets
, etc., and poems from the late 60s and 1970 in the new, open style of
Many Happy Returns
. In 1968 Ted had begun leading a migrant poetry teacher’s life and was spending time in Midwestern university towns like Iowa City and Ann Arbor. The light was different, he was making new friends, and he had begun to feel fated: to be addicted to drugs (pills, mostly speed) and perhaps to die early. The new poems elegize people who have recently died (Jack Kerouac, Rocky Marciano, Franny Winston, and others), allude to the war in Vietnam, celebrate specific evenings and occasions, and also celebrate the overcoming of emotional shakiness through the writing of poetry and through affection for others.
    The long poem
Train Ride
, written in 1971 but not published until 1978, is a lavish example of an affectionate poem for a friend: it is a “love poem” addressed to Joe Brainard, and is about love, sex, and friendship. The poem speaks to Joe throughout, informally, frankly, a little in Joe’s own style, and includes mock complaints about Ted’s and Joe’s mutual friends, about Joe himself, and a projected complaint, too, about Ted. The poem was written on a single day, February 18, during the course of a literal train ride between New York and Providence; it filled a rather large notebook. I remember Ted returning from the trip with the poem, slightly confused by the fact that it really was everything he wanted to say to Joe but also probably really a poem. This ambiguity, an unsure edge between life and art (not like Rauschenberg’s “gap” but much more razorlike, something that might hurt you in its reality) kept Ted from publishing it for some years.
    “Memorial Day,” written around the same time in collaboration with Anne Waldman, is a long poem in a similar voice, though the voice is Ted’s and Anne’s fused. The voice is open, plain speaking, and flexible. It can take on everything a conversation can; and though the poem has a back-and-forth movement in it, it also feels unified and inspired in the way that two people talking sometimes become one thing, the conversation. The poem was written to be performed at a reading at the Poetry Project (St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bouwerie, New York) on May 5, 1971, and Ted and Anne worked on it for several months. Since Memorial Day falls in May and is potentially rich in its association with death and sacrifice/heroism, it was decided in advance that Memorial Day would be the title and subject ofthe work. The two poets were living in separate towns on Long Island and wrote separately, in asterisk-headed sections, giving or sending their work to each other from time to time for response, but there was no chronological ordering going on. At