Ted: A Personal Memoir of Ted Berrigan

by Ron Padgett

In 113 short chapters, Ron Padgett's precision prose travels back over the twenty-five years of his close friendship with Ted Berrigan, the legendary poet whose life and work transformed a generation and whose death in 1983 at age forty-eight left a significant rent in the fabric of the American poetry scene. In crisp, clear verbal snapshots, Padgett recaptures the student years in Tulsa and the free-wheeling , scruffy enchantment of their lives in New York City in the early 1960s, a time of low rent and cheap meals, of foreign movies, of hero worship and budding friendships, of endless books and all-night talk-that once-only time when youth's energy is fueled by an intense love of art and poetry. Nonfiction.

Genres: Nonfiction, Poetry

99 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

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

[Anselm · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd have given this a higher rating ten years ago, but maybe that's unfair since Padgett has since written two much longer biographical works - on his father and Joe Brainard. But hey, he's working out some feeling about his subject while writing this, which is actually pretty interesting, so I guess I could give it four stars. Or five. Or two, depending on how I feel about reading about how ron feels about my dad. It's a bit like grading yr eyeball. Just one, though.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

“He should be buried at Springs, or in the Saint Mark’s churchyard, or in Providence. Or, rather, he shouldn’t be buried at all, at least in the way we think about him. He should be kept alive. Even in such a disloyal memoir as this!”

[great hit · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book upset me very much

[Mitch · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short & sweet memoir of Ted Berrigan is just the thing for me. I had met with, and even taken a workshop with Ted, but I could not say that I knew him. Ron knew him very well, and his memories of Ted really do shed some light on Ted's larger than life personality, and his work, too. Beautifully written.