Some Notes on My Programming

By Anselm Berrigan

Poetry. SOME NOTES ON MY PROGRAMMING finds Anselm Berrigan, Artistic Director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, once more in funny, irritable, tip-top form. Surveying the Bush-era cultural landscape and not liking what it sees, the poetry herein confronts that reality in terms disgusted ("The group is/an asshole./Self-censorship/is the American avant-garde") and terrifying ("Dreamt I was chopping off fingers/of mine with audience. Not cool"), encompassing odd disclosure ("I don't want my brother to get a job ever") and biting satire ("Osama passes/George the bong/bitching about 21st century/hydroponic weed"). And yet, even if we are all just "Trained Meat," as the title of one poem suggests, the work here never gives in to despair; we may be "under attack/in mourning/all at once" but we also "better make//room for each/grief letting/me see what/lines and/lies/not to take/and how/moment/by moment/to be." A fantastic and necessary book.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1890311200
• ISBN13: 9781890311209
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Edge Books
• Length: 78 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.