5 Poems by Ted Berrigan

Ted Berrigan (1934 - 1983)

"I can't see myself the way that you can see me, but I can see everything else around me. If I can make everything around me be the way that is, presumably I can create the shape of the self inside the poem." [1]

On November 15, 1934 Ted Berrigan was born of Irish Catholic parents in Providence, Rhode Island. [2] After a year Providence College, he joined the army and served in Korea. [3] Upon his return, he earned a BA from the University of Tulsa in 1959. He earned a MA in 1962, but returned it because he disagreed with the idea that a degree could acknowledge "master" achievement; he believed the fact he wrote poetry was what made him a poet.

Berrigan associated himself as a poet of later Beat temperament, but critics considered his work of second generation New York School. [4] Along with his second wife, Alice Notley, he was prominent in poetry circles in Chicago and New York. [5] He taught at Yale, the University of Iowa, and the City College of New York. [6] He also wrote for and edited magazines. [7]

Berrigan collaborated with poets Ron Padgett and Joe Brainard. [8] In his biography of Berrigan on the Poetry Foundation website, Edward Halsey Foster cites Marcel Duchamp, John Cage and William Burroughs as being influential to Berrigan's poetics. [9]

Exacerbated by his addition to diet pills and amphetamine use, [10] Berrigan was sick for several years after contracting hepatitis in 1975. [11] He died July 4, 1983.


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Text of Poems Read
Little Travelogue
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/berrigan/little.html

Sonnet XXXVI after frank O'Hara
(Not available on line. From Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology ed., Paul Hoover, Norton & Co., New York, 1994)

Buddha on the Bounty
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/berrigan/buddha.html

3 pages
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=182173

Words for Love
http://www.geegaw.com/stories/words_for_love.shtml

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Sources & Notes

[1] Poetry Foundation: Edward Halsey Foster: Ted Berrigan (1934-1983) Biography, quoting from Berrigan interview with Ann Waldman and Jim Cohn
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/ted-berrigan

[2] [4] [6] [9] [11] Poetry Foundation: Edward Halsey Foster: Ted Berrigan (1934-1983) Biography
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/ted-berrigan

[3] [5] [7] [8] [10]Wikipedia: Ted Berrigan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Berrigan

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Music:
Community Audio
(if anyone knows how to attribute this, please let me know.)
http://www.archive.org/details/TheNewMusicShow6September2010

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[adriaankrabbendam]

thanx for this. and "addition" should be "addiction" of course :-)

[andrewnorris2]

3 pages seems to contain something of his philosophy, the way he 'sees everything else around him' this he has encapsulated in this poems and, for me, was a good introduction to this name. Good work, James, another feather in your quiver of sharp pointed arrows.

[Idlinfarm]

Wonderful poems. Thank you for your research and reading.

[borisuewetty]

I enjoyed Ted B. this morning.

Thanks.

Have a nice week, my friend.

All the best

Kean

[HerAeolianHarp]

Glad to get acquainted with Ted Berrigan, thank you.