Poems I Guess I Wrote

Product Description

Eighteen poems ranging 1965-1999 that have two things in common: they're written by Ron Padgett but he's not completely sure. No, he did write them, but as he explains, "Like the surrealist poet Robert Desnos, who could go into a trance, write a poem, and, on awakening, be baffled by his own scribblings, the author of these poems, looking through old folders and notebooks, has discovered poems that, though undeniably his own, he has little or no recollection of having written. Nevertheless the author is mysteriously attracted to these forgotten trysts with the Muse and willing to collect them hereperhaps presumptuouslyunder his own name, with the hope that the reader, with a memory better than the authors, will not later think of them as Poems I Guess I Read." The book's a wonderful little shadow recapitulation of nearly the entire length of the author's career. With a cover and five drawings by Padgett's frequent collaborator, the marvelous George Schneeman.

About the Author

Ron is the influential and in some quarters controversial Tulsa-bred poet who stormed New York in the 1960's with his boyhood friends Dick Gallup and Joe Brainard and their pal Ted Berrigan and has done a lot to keep things interesting in American poetry since. His books include Great Balls of Fire; Toujours lamour; Triangles in the Afternoon; New & Selected Poems; Creative Reading: What It Is, How to Do It, and Why; Albanian Diary, an account of his visit to that country; and a translation of The Complete Poems of Blaise Cendrars. Padgett also edited two reference books, The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms and World Poets: An Encyclopedia for Students. His most recent book is The Straight Line, a collection of his writings on poetry.