is an adrenaline rush.
I’d argue that such a book couldn’t be written in Moscow, ID, or Kent, OH, or Schenectady, NY, or at least by anyone outside the East Village, by anyone whose sensibility is wrapped around the pace of a small town, its open space/s, all its resplendently inhabitable psychic ground/s. Look up urban poetry on wikipedia, I’m sure you’ll find Berrigan’s mug shot. I couldn’t write this book–I don’t know anyone who could–but I’m jazzed Berrigan did.
Some Notes on My Programming is an absolutely unharnessed, unhinged, irrepressible bardic yawp. The man’s got poetry in his blood cells (no doubt bursting at the flimsy biological seams), his impossibly flexible bones, every synapse snapping almost beyond its limits. Offspring of Ted Berrigan and Alice Notley, he’s also the progeny of Ron Padgett, Frank O’Hara, and Gregory Corso (but oh so much faster and frenetic; it’s a wonder a mere two dimensional page can contain his velocity).
He’s clearly a product of the nature thing, and I imagine he’s received a bit of poetic nurturing in his life, too. Skeptical of children who follow in their parents’ footsteps–they’ve got built in access; they’ve got pavement when so many other poets start out in the wilderness, I’ve been slow to pick up one of Berrigan’s books. I’m about to say I’m glad I did but first I have to catch my breath.
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