Excerpt from Shoe, or Tree?
* * * *
November 30 & I’m wondering
if curiosity, in me, can win out
over despair, at least for a while
longer. I like the looseness of a
while. When despair approaches
I get even, but low-level feel
for the self-destruct button.
Which turns out to be another
um-bilical hernia. Doctor Hof-
stetter playing wack a hole with
my belly the size of which is hard
to gauze (I prefer loose clothing).
One anti-despair image I retain
having invented it just now is
wearing an over-sized flannel
shirt at the age of sixty-five.
When I’m helpful I’m surprised.
When I’m grateful I burst into
tears. I’m told I don’t talk about
my feelings enough, but I know
on the inside how self-absorbed
I am, & the poets let it flow
with buzzing fracked apology
incisions (Nesh vomiting foam)
the live ear has no room not to
take, this poem may be inter-
upted by cat surgery soon, R.
Smithson was just a baby when
he died you don’t know, Piper
digs Empson enough to let me
what, distract myself in theory
by planning a tribute, do you
really need more of my feel-
ings? Emphasis takes care of
yeah she has that option. An
aside that concludes things.
Leniency deserving no norms.
* * * *
if anyone has any spare time & would like to help fold, staple, & mutilate, please let us know
it is rare when a real writer becomes also a real restaurateur
& form is all beautiful & typical & unread & self-destructive in complete & enjoyable fashion
admired by a giant who likes them
and yet, dude, the soundtrack did not invent silence
or, baby, maybe it did did do that that
it’s when you sprinkle a little ground conspiracy on the proceedings
write a poem called “impractical advice” that begins “lay back in relation to certain people” we texted ourselves recently
make a map of z one & done
some people support disagreement in principle without realizing it
some of those people like to hang out after readings
the places that still let you hang out afterwards are where you’ll find them
I saw no hands during the zoom meeting but knew they were all wringing
hoody production meets obstinate website
we screamed 57 times in five-and-a-half minutes
hard not to talk about that at the critique
placing bonus succulent has proved elusive
to be elusive vs I forgot about possibility
between pages only one page may prove attainable or retainable
depending on our sense of what tainable might mean
disAnselmed disanselmed
the practice test validated repetition
when we took the title IX course five years later all the situations were unchanged
we felt awful that the bullied office worker was still crying tears of frustration in his car, & that his bullying co-worker remained oblivious and at large
completing the on-line course at multiple institutions was no consolation
one of those institutions may be taking transformation seriously, according to minutes
handed the old language as template for new situations
we’re all (interrupted)
& yet when therapy points to our powerlessness we gap
we gasp?
we gap
we don’t want power, we have too much on the inside, the interior, the temporary source
uninterested in outlasting
now decide where surface & source meet
end the night with pop songs & other songs
end the night
it’s only 5:59 pm & we have to make dinner so but to the last thoughtless
can’t pick up presents when the untouch is in command
everyone can reply
* * * *
They tell you what they’re doing in order to steer you into submission
They look perennially for the incompetent replacement
The dominant incompetent administers anger elliptically
Waking up begins to feel unsafe
* * * *
Your footnotes lack persona — a foot rub might help
Children’s Dresses, Boys’ Suits, Underwear, 2A Bar, Novelties
They overdosed on failing better after mail broke the demagogue
* * * *
The conversation between gratitude & irony is where realism goes to listen
He’s offended only when the phone rings
The poems become photographs to avoid publication
* * * *
This month you’re averaging fewer steps each day than you did last month
You’re averaging fewer steps a day this year than last year
The pandemic has reduced your daily steps by 2,500 on average at least this year
You’re clearly not pacing enough at home
It’s hard to pace in a small apartment
Pacing also often requires privacy
Privacy is not your friend any more
ANSELM BERRIGAN (https://www.wavepoetry.com/products/anselm-berrigan) has been contributing to Boog publications and reading at Boog events since the late nineties, and in 2000 was the baseball editor for issue eight of their litzine Booglit. A chapbook, Shoe, or Tree?, containing the whole poem for Lewis Warsh, will be out later this year from Boog City.
Berrigan is the author of many books of poetry: from Wave Books, Something for Everybody, Come In Alone, and Notes from Irrelevance; from Edge Books Primitive State, Some Notes on My Programming, Zero Star Hotel, and Integrity and Dramatic Life; and Free Cell from City Lights Books. He is also the editor of What is Poetry? (Just Kidding, I Know You Know): Interviews from the Poetry Project Newsletter (1983–2009) and co-author of two collaborative books: Loading, with visual artist Jonathan Allen (Brooklyn Arts Press), and Skasers, with poet John Coletti (Flowers & Cream). His chapbooks include Pregrets (Vagabond Press), and Sure Shot (Overpass Books). He is the poetry editor for The Brooklyn Rail, and co-editor, with Alice Notley and Edmund Berrigan, of The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan and The Selected Poems of Ted Berrigan (both from U. California, 2011).
A member of the subpress publishing collective, he has published Selected Poems of Steve Carey and Hoa Nguyen’s Your Ancient See Through. From 2003-2007 he was artistic director of The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, where he also hosted the Wednesday Night Reading Series for four years. He is co-chair, Writing at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts interdisciplinary M.F.A. program, and also teaches part-time at Brooklyn College. He was awarded a 2015 Process Space Residency by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and in 2014 he was awarded a Robert Rauschenberg Residency by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. He was a New York State Foundation for the Arts fellow in Poetry for 2007, and has received three grants from the Fund for Poetry.
He lives in New York City, where he also grew up.