Some Notes on My Programming

by Anselm Berrigan

Poetry. SOME NOTES ON MY PROGRAMMING finds Anselm Berrigan, Artistic Director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, once more in funny, irritable, tip-top form. Surveying the Bush-era cultural landscape and not liking what it sees, the poetry herein confronts that reality in terms disgusted ("The group is/an asshole./Self-censorship/is the American avant-garde") and terrifying ("Dreamt I was chopping off fingers/of mine with audience. Not cool"), encompassing odd disclosure ("I don't want my brother to get a job ever") and biting satire ("Osama passes/George the bong/bitching about 21st century/hydroponic weed"). And yet, even if we are all just "Trained Meat," as the title of one poem suggests, the work here never gives in to despair; we may be "under attack/in mourning/all at once" but we also "better make//room for each/grief letting/me see what/lines and/lies/not to take/and how/moment/by moment/to be." A fantastic and necessary book.

Genres: Poetry

78 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Anselm Berrigan is the author of four books of poetry, including Free Cell, Some Notes on My Programming, Zero Star Hotel, and Notes from Irrelevance, and is the co-editor with Alice Notley and Edmund Berrigan of Selected Poems of Ted Berrigan. He is the poetry editor for The Brooklyn Rail, and formerly served as Artistic Director of The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church. He lives and works in his hometown of New York City.

Reviews

[Rodney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slipshod grandeur assigned to the Age of Iron. Threnody meets rhapsody meets "poetry in its pristine pucker slop."

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly brilliant. Read it. Read it again.

[Renee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the spontaneity of Anselm's language and look forward to reading more of his books.