BEAN SPASMS

by Ted Berrigan

New York 1967 first edition. Kulchur Press. Hardcover 4to. pictorial boards showing a bright yellow daffodill with green stalk and bold white lettering on black background (pictures available on request. ) Illustrated and drawings by Joe Brainard. some photo illus. 202p. VG ++ . Wonderful condition, almost no wear; owner signed. Original acetate dust jacket is present but rubbed and age toned with spine end wear and tear. A new fine acetate jacket will be provided as well as an alternative. This book is Very Scarce in hardcover.

Genres: Poetry

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Berrigan was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 15, 1934. After high school, he spent a year at Providence College before joining the U.S. Army. After three years in the Army, he finished his college studies at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma, where he received a BA in English in 1959 and fell just short of the requirements for a M.A. in 1962. Berrigan was married to Sandy Berrigan, also a poet, and they had two children, David Berrigan and Kate Berrigan. He and his second wife, the poet Alice Notley, were active in the poetry scene in Chicago for several years, then moved to New York City, where he edited various magazines and books.

A prominent figure in the second generation of the New York School of Poets, Berrigan was peer to Jim Carroll, Anselm Hollo, Alice Notley, Ron Padgett, Anne Waldman, Bernadette Mayer, and Lewis Warsh. He collaborated with Padgett and Joe Brainard on Bean Spasms, a work significant in its rejection of traditional concepts of ownership. Though Berrigan, Padgett, and Brainard all wrote individual poems for the book, and collaborated on many others, no authors were listed for individual poems.

The poet Frank O'Hara called Berrigan's most significant publication, The Sonnets, "a fact of modern poetry." A telling reflection on the era that produced it, The Sonnets beautifully weaves together traditional elements of the Shakespearean sonnet form with the disjunctive structure and cadence of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land and Berrigan's own literary innovations and personal experiences.

Berrigan died on July 4, 1983 at the age of 49. The cause of death was cirrhosis of the liver brought on by hepatitis.

Reviews

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two of these three stars are for the contributions of Joe Brainard, the interview and the illustrations. The rest of the book, these collaborive Berrigan & Padgett pieces are just exhausting exercises in free-flowing nonsense. I'm not opposed to this sort of thing and there are some bright moments, but there's just an incredible density to these that makes them really impossible to really access beyond words on paper.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sadly out-of-print, if I had a book company this would be gladly in-print.

[Robert Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS BOOK!