Pink Dust

by Ron Padgett

A wry, poignant reflection on aging from one of America's finest and most admired poets.

Admired by such luminaries as punk rock godfather Richard Hell and indie film director Jim Jarmusch, Pulitzer Prize finalist Ron Padgett is one of our best known and most acclaimed poets. For the last six decades, Padgett’s poetry—“wonderful, generous, funny” (John Ashbery)—has moved and delighted generations of readers with its inventiveness, its gentle humor, and above all, its ability to instill wonder for the world.

These same qualities Padgett brings to his latest book of poems, Pink Dust, a poignant reflection on old age that shimmers with all the insouciance of youth.

Genres: Poetry

128 pages, Paperback

Published March 11, 2025

About the author

Ron Padgett is a poet and translator whose Collected Poems won the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America and the 2014 Los Angeles Times Prize for the best poetry book. Padgett has translated the poetry of Apollinaire, Pierre Reverdy, Valery Larbaud, and Blaise Cendrars.

Reviews

[Aneesa]

I haven't read a book of poetry for a long time.

My mother tells stories about her friends as though I know them, but always uses their full names, as though I don't. When I ask her about my childhood, she only remembers hers. The first section of this book reminded me of her.

These lines reminded me of me:

"All my life I've been dogged
by good luck, except
for the bad luck of being born."

"Ah, the sad, small pleasure
of being right."

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

“There can’t be many more years to my life.
Boo hoo.”

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I saw the title, I assumed the title poem would be about erasers, and I wasn't wrong. So glad I decided to buy the book, so I can read it over and over again (already read it twice or three times, and seems like it will be a book I want to keep handy). The book has three sections: Residue, Geezer, and Lockdown. I'll share one from each (but not the title poem, which you should enjoy when you get hold of the book yourself):

I wish my mother and father
would have been able to open
a window and look in
to see their own personalities,
and to have found me
sitting in there waiting for them,
so they could have opened
a window in me too,
but it didn't happen,
and we all three stayed
who we didn't think we were.
It's too bad,
we could have known how
wonderful we were!

From the middle section, Geezer:

You get to a certain age
and you start sitting around
waiting
for the future,
as now there's no reason
to rush toward it
as you did when you didn't think
it existed, not really,
and now, funny thing,
soon enough you'll be right.

And one from the final section, Lockdown:

I would like to build a house
based on an exceptionally long sentence
from Marcel Proust or Henry James,
the structure going on and on
to the point where you exclaim
"There's yet another room?"
There's always another room,
we just don't know where the door is,
because it's not a noun, it's a conjunction
that, when you turn to look, jumps behind itself.

[Eric]

I launched a new site for book reviews!

https://ocreviewofbooks.org/2025/03/2...

Let me know if you want to write for me!

[Stuart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in big gulp an hour after the special order arrived at my local small-town bookstore, and it immediately drove me to write a poem. Well, a poem about Ron and this book. Pink Dust is exhilarating, but quietly so. It's surprising, but quietly so. Ron is still that young audacious punk who wrote Great Balls of Fire, but now he's in his 80s. And that informs this beautiful collection. A great addition to an essential oeuvre.

[Nathan Ko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Padgett is a mastermind. His poems, like ashbery’s, are detached and operate under illogical logic, but something in Padgett’s poems work just like glue. Perhaps it’s the specificity of the lines. But sometimes you can just tell that a poet is incredibly well read. There are homages to both his internal and external worlds in his poems, and they are certainly not empty.

[Danny Gage · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few poems had nice insight into growing older and Padgett is bizarre in his own right, but mostly, it’s poems like this:

“Oh ho!
More snow

from Norway
I’d say

Let it fall
over all

Norway there
Norway here”

These poems just ain’t for me. Maybe they will be one day, as they clearly touch a lot of people’s souls.

[Alexandra Terlesky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very lovely, fun poems.

[Cody]

Sneaky powerful poems. Come for the humor, stay for the epiphanies.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 4 out of 5]

My introduction to the writing of Padgett. Reflective, matter-of-fact, strange, and funny. A quick read. I need to check out more of his poetry.

[Yasmine Iliana]

Favorite: the untitled poem on page 12

[Toby · Rating 5 out of 5]

punchy poems that made me laugh&cry simultaneously. Like a mumblecore poetry book. Thanks to my coworker Sam for recommending.