That's nice.
I didn't know I was getting an intro, too.
Very, very kind.
I'm going to start formal and then
get slightly less formal, if that's OK,
just to give everyone a sense.
Anselm Berrigan, poet, teacher, editor and occasional publisher,
is the author of several books of poetry,
including Don't Forget to Love Me,
Something for Everybody, Come in Alone, Primitive State, Notes
from Irrelevance, Zero Star Hotel, and Regrets.
He was the poetry editor for the Brooklyn Rail from 2008
until recently, and is the former artistic director
of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church.
He edited What is Poetry?
Just Kidding, I Know You Know: Interviews
from the Poetry Project Newsletter, 1983 to 2009.
Berrigan's Work is clever, multifaceted, intellectual,
colloquial, everyday, political, cosmic, ever adapting formally
and visually on the rectangle of the page,
and resistant to the simplicity or reductions.
Berrigan challenges the status quo and uplifts the outlier.
And the long poem, And What Does Need Mean, for the Parish
Hall at St. Mark's church, Berrigan writes, "I come here
to listen without convention to listen,
against to listen for conventions, lack to hear it,
the art of its offshoots, foils, companions
and highly troubled organs disappear
by doing being in that, it's easy to do
and gets harder as the shapes get shapelier.
You really think language failed?
I would describe Berrigan as consistently gesturing outward,
questioning the role of the speaker or the ego,
its role in the poem, the vessel in which perceptions
seep through and are artfully arranged.
In his book Come in Alone, a visually idiosyncratic book
of poems written along the border
of the page, the first poem is marked solely
with the capital letter I repeated, for instance.
Here, poems and lines are seamless,
circuiting outward into endless meanings.
Berrigan is generous.
In his life and work, he continues
to acknowledge and honor his poetic influences,
and to support up and coming poets alike.
Through his editing work on interviews in What is Poetry?
Just Kidding, I Know You Know, Berrigan facilitated and made
space for the cross-generational engagement
between younger poets who wanted to connect with older artists
and writers.
I'm full of cliches when I try to articulate earnestly
and honestly what Berrigan's influence has been on my life
as a poet.
I wouldn't have become a poet if I hadn't, or it
was serendipitous that I encountered Berrigan early on.
Anselm was one of my first poetry workshop teachers.
And I was fortunate to absorb his knowledge for a couple
semesters between 2009 and 2011 at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
Over 15 years later, I still carry Anselm's poem prompts
and lessons with me closely, often recycling them
onto my own students.
Anselm taught me how to keep poetry
as a through line in my life, despite the ever
dominant cultures, minimization, or questioning
of poetry as a life path.
Anselm taught us, through close readings,
interesting and humanizing anecdotes on poets,
and speaking the poems out loud about the power of poetry
to shift the atmosphere.
Things that were invisible became visible.
Anselm allowed us to enter, extend,
and move beyond the realms of grief, daily life, and dreams.
We were saturated meaningfully with the work
of vast and varied poets, many of whom
were memorable for the ways Anselm introduced them, revered
them, extended curiosity, and offered
their multidimensionality beyond the xeroxed pages.
This is a long intro.
I tried to make it shorter, but we're just going to keep going.
And I'm a woman of few words, so.
My classmates and I, in the semesters
that followed, missing Anselm's wisdom and presence,
would wistfully say to one another, Anselm, forever.
I learned and witnessed, through Anselm's teachings,
that poetry transcends time, geography, death, and logic.
I learned and continue to learn the magic of coincidence.
In the time between now and then,
there have been many real surreal moments.
Anselm would have us write him letters.
And through this, he provided many personalized book
recommendations.
One book he recommended to me was the anthology Not
For Mothers Only: Contemporary Poems on Child
Getting and Child Rearing.
Drawn to many of the contributors,
though ignorant to the motherhood theme,
I recently pulled it instinctually from the shelf
for the first time in over a decade,
pregnant with my first child.
During an Anne Carson reading at St. Mark's Church,
I saw Lou Reed, one of my heroes at the time,
doze off in the audience.
Soon after my time in New York City, I was star
struck when I spotted the poet Cedar Sigo, whose work Anselm
shared with us working the cosmetics
section of Rainbow Grocery in San Francisco, a place I went to
as a child.
In New Mexico, I went to a bookstore
and asked the staff if they had any books by Layli Long Soldier.
Anselm had taught some of her online poems.
And I was baffled when they said they didn't, not understanding
how time worked, that her book Whereas was years
away from entering the world.
I remember many Alice Notley readings at Pratt,
the entire creative writing program
crammed into one classroom.
In Oakland, I hobbled on crutches
to see her read in a warehouse here at the Poetry Center, also
for a lecture and a reading.
At the University of Arizona, another packed classroom.
I remember Notley tearing up reciting lines
from William Carlos Williams' Asphodel, that Greeny Flower.
Buzzing, I rushed home to read the poem
and didn't feel what Notley seemed to feel.
But when I read the poem this morning, I wept.
Here at the Poetry Center, I've received
the gift of witnessing so many incredible poets read.
And I find that if you wait around long enough,
favorites like Anselm Berrigan will arrive.
Please, let's welcome Anselm Berrigan.