An interview with Ted Berrigan

by Ted Berrigan

Am Freitag, dem 17. Mai 1968, dringen neun Personen in das Wehrersatzamt Catonsville/Baltimore ein, leeren die Karteikästen mit den Stammrollen für die Einberufung nach Vietnam und verbrennen alles im Hof. Das geschieht unter der Leitung von Philip und Daniel Berrigan, zwei katholischen Ordenspriestern. Heute sitzen sie und die anderen Im Gefänqnis, zu mehrlährlaen Freiheitsstrafen verurteilt. Die Berrigans wurden inzwischen zum Symbol des Widerstands, den sie »zivilen Ungehorsam« nennen. Er basiert nicht auf marxistisch begründetem Verlangen nach gesellschaftlichem Umsturz, sondern auf der Christlichen Verantwortung für die Menschen »um uns herum«. So kämpfen sie gegen jede Passivität, die organisiertes Unrecht hinnimmt, wenn es öffentlich geduldet o terstellung des FBI, auch zur Gewaltanwendung gegen Personen bereit zu sein. Ihr Prinzip heißt »gewaltloser Widerstand«. Wie weit man dabei gehen darf oder nach seinem Gewissen sogar gehen muß, diskutieren in diesem Buch unter anderem die weltbekannten Gelehrten Noam Chomsky und Gordon Zahn.

Board Book

Published January 1, 1971

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.