Zero Star Hotel

by Anselm Berrigan

Poetry. The son of Ted Berrigan and Alice Notley, Anselm Berrigan has been surrounded by poetry and poetics his entire life, a fact that was much noted after the publication of his first book, INTEGRITY & DRAMATIC LIFE (also available from SPD). But ZERO STAR HOTEL, while it will impress most of those early readers, may also suprise them. Taking family relationships, including the death of his step-father Douglas Oliver, as his subject matter, Berrigan's new work evinces a startling range and depth: acute anger, confusion, frustration, and stark awareness of the complexity of his poetic inheiritance. While these poems manage to practice the surreal playfulness Berrigan mastered at an early age, the context is darker, the clever phrases ever more ominous. "some say oblivion/ it is where you lose/ the stains on your ivory/ semi-see through/ untucked dress shirt/ but the stains/ they reappear/ on the other side/ and you will pay/ to have them removed" (from "Zero Star Hotel") Kevin Killian

Genres: Poetry

101 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

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

[Andy Stallings · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first two sections were very poor, even infuriating at times. Only the poem "My Babysitters" was even moderately valuable to read. The title section, however, was dramatically more interesting. The compression afforded by the 10-line form, repeated 6 times per page for 35 pages, really improved the voice. A pre-Facebook take on the same kind of mental/emotional catalogue as Tommy Pico's "IRL," if not a possible precursor to that poem. I would possibly read this long poem again, and would mark it as a sequence worth pointing to if there's ever a class I'm teaching that's focused on sequences in a very broad way.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually had the privilege of attending a reading by Berrigan, in which he mostly focused on Zero Star Hotel. It was a great experience to hear the work read by the author, but it was definitely different than I had imagined it in my head. Dare I say he made them a little dull by the way he read them? It was a few years ago, but that's what I remember feeling. Alice Notley also did a reading that night. Very neat!

[Juliet · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 3/4 stars.

For the most part, I quite enjoyed this, but just could get into the last long title poem at all. I approached that poem and tried reading it several different times and then gave up, because it just wasn't working for me.

That poem gets 2 3/4 stars; the rest of the collection gets 4 stars.

[Michael Flatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book belongs in the lineage of Apollinaire, O'Hara, Ashbery and Ted Berrigan. A continuation of the communal, hilarious, teetering verse of the New York School.

[Mathias Harding · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic book of poetry! Saw Anselm perform it live at BSU! loved it! esp the cousins! :D

[Allyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just read this. It was really great.