Ted Berrigan

PoemTalk Podcast #5, discussing Berrigan's "3 Pages," April 3, 2008

Listen to the complete recording.

Last reading, St. Clement's, NYC, possibly April 18, 1983

Courtesy of Simon Pettet.

• Side A (32:02): MP3
• Includes comments on "So Going around Cities", etc. reading "Whitman in Black", commenting "I like to think of myself as a formalist", reading "Last Poem", "With Daring and Strength", "A Certain Slant of Sunlight", "Give Them Back Who Never Were", then reading from "Postcard Poems", "Providence", "Let No Willful Fate…", "Down on Mission", "Natchez", "Space", "A City Winter", "To Sing the Song Fantastic", "Tough Cookies", and "For Jacques Roubaud",


• Side B (19:09): MP3
• Includes "Dice Riders", "Windshield", "Warrior", "My Autobiography", "Blue Galahad", "In Your Fuckin’ Utopia", "The School Windows Song" (after Vachel Lindsay), "Ass-face", "Turk", "Creature", "Tompkins Square Park", and "Frances", before the recording cuts off, as well as "Heroin", "Buddha-ho" (word cut off midway), "Song, Prose, & Poetry", and "Hall of Mirrors"

Ted Berrigan comments extensively both before and after reading.

1. Introduction (0:52): MP3
2. discussing his writing (15:09): MP3
3. A City Winter (0:13): MP3
4. A Certain Slant of Sunlight (1:29): MP3
5. Give Them Back, Who Never Were (4:02): MP3
6. Now that I (0:34): MP3
7. Okay. First. ... (1:38): MP3
8. Every day back & forth (1:07): MP3
9. Turk (0:56): MP3
10. Let No Willful Fate Misunderstand (2:01): MP3
11. Warrior, Warrior (1:22): MP3
12. To Sing the Song, That Is Fantastic (1:39): MP3
13. In Your Fucking Utopias (4:26): MP3
14. XIII (2:08): MP3
15. The School Windows Song (3:22): MP3
16. Without Scruple (2:07): MP3
17. Ass-face (0:29): MP3
18. Natchez (2:01): MP3
19. Space (3:31): MP3
20. To Book-Keepers (3:58): MP3
21. Stars & Stripes Forever (0:38): MP3
22. Down on Mission (0:44): MP3
23. Dice Riders (0:39): MP3
24. The Way It Was in Wheeling (0:58): MP3
25. Sleeping Alone (2:54): MP3
26. Blue Galahad (0:52): MP3
27. Sweet Iris (3:54): MP3
28. Creature (1:43): MP3
29. Providence (3:29): MP3
30. Wantonness (1:53): MP3
31. You'll do good if you play it like you're (1:30): MP3
32. Pillow Talk (1:35): MP3
33. Interstices (1:27): MP3
34. To Be Serious (2:07): MP3
35. Mutiny (1:49): MP3
36. Ode (0:48): MP3
37. Poets Tribute to Philip Guston (0:44): MP3
38. The Who's Last Tour (1:17): MP3
39. Red Shift (2:11): MP3

Complete reading (1:25:37): MP3

From Exact Change Yearbook, no. 1 (ed. Peter Gizzi)

• Red Shift (3:01): MP3
• Recorded July 25, 1982, at the Naropa Institute

Reading, c. 1982

Courtesy of Simon Pettet.

• Complete recording (46:13): MP3
• Includes Berrigan commenting "I’m going to read you 500 poems but they’re all very recent just to show you what you can do", reading "Yeah tho’ I walk...", "Caesar" (after Catullus), "With Daring and Strength", "Coffee And", "Salutation", "Winged Pessary", "Do You Know Rene", "Paris Frances", "The By-Laws", collaborations with lines from Alice Notley and others, "When I was Alive", "Beautifulness", "Eye of the Beholder", "Bardolino", "The Sentiment", "The Sailor & the Samaon Schoolgirl", "Motto of the Whores and Poets Guild", "The Way It Was", "Delusions of the Insane" (alt. version), "A Mind…The Highest Question", "Homage to Keith G", "WCW Poem", "Clear by Grandma", "Little Travelog", "Dinner at George & Schneeman’s" with Steve Carey, "Four Metaphysical Poems", "Who Was Sylvia?", "War and Peace", "In the Land of pygmies and Giants", with Greg Masters, "Edtude for Ten Thumbs", "Poets Tribute to Philip Guston", "Christmas Card", "Via Air", "People Who Changed Their Names", commenting "All us poets are interested in is craft", reading "Whoa Back Buck and Gee by Land", "That Poem George Found", "A Certain Slant of Sunlight", "Another New Old Song", and last poem

The Sonnets, New Langton Arts, San Francisco, June 24, 1981

1. Sonnet 1 (0:39): MP3
   
2. Sonnet 2 (0:43): MP3
   
3. Sonnet 3 (0:45): MP3
   
4. Sonnet 4 (0:44): MP3
   
5. Sonnet 5 (0:45): MP3
   
6. Sonnet 6 (2:06): MP3
   
7. Poem in the Traditional Manner (1:42): MP3
   
8. Poem in the Modern Manner (1:32): MP3
   
9. From a Secret Journal (1:15): MP3
   
10. Sonnet 10 (1:40): MP3
    
11. Sonnet 11 (0:42): MP3
    
12. Penn Station (0:56): MP3
    
13. Sonnet 13 (0:37): MP3
    
14. Sonnet 15 (1:37): MP3
    
15. Sonnet 16 (0:47): MP3
    
16. Sonnet 17 (0:42): MP3
    
17. Sonnet 18 (0:48): MP3
    
18. Sonnet 19 (0:53): MP3
    
19. Sonnet 21 (0:42): MP3
    
20. Sonnet 23 (1:18): MP3
    
21. Sonnet 26 (1:51): MP3
    
22. Sonnet 27 (0:55): MP3
    
23. Sonnet 30 (0:44): MP3
    
24. Sonnet 31 (0:44): MP3
    
25. Sonnet 32 (0:51): MP3
    
26. Sonnet 34 (1:15): MP3
    
27. Sonnet 36 (1:34): MP3
    
28. Sonnet 37 (0:57): MP3
    
29. Sonnet 38 (0:49): MP3
    
30. Mess Occupations (1:29): MP3
    
31. Sonnet 40 (1:33): MP3
    
32. Sonnet 41 (0:41): MP3
    
33. Sonnet 42 (0:54): MP3
    
34. Sonnet 43 (0:43): MP3
    
35. Sonnet 44 (1:01): MP3
    
36. Sonnet 45 (0:44): MP3
    
37. Sonnet 46 (0:43): MP3
    
38. Sonnet 47 (1:16): MP3
    
39. Sonnet 48 (0:52): MP3
    
40. Sonnet 49 (0:49): MP3
    
41. Sonnet 50 (1:24): MP3
    
42. Sonnet 51 (0:51): MP3
    
43. Sonnet 52 (0:35): MP3
    
44. Sonnet 53 (0:53): MP3
    
45. Sonnet 54 (0:56): MP3
    
46. Sonnet 55 (0:58): MP3
    
47. Sonnet 56 (0:45): MP3
    
48. Sonnet 57 (0:39): MP3
    
49. Sonnet 58 (0:55): MP3
    
50. Sonnet 59 (0:41): MP3
    
51. Sonnet 60 (0:43): MP3
    
52. Sonnet 61 (0:52): MP3
    
53. Sonnet 62 (0:44): MP3
    
54. Sonnet 70 (1:21): MP3
    
55. Sonnet 71 (1:04): MP3
    
56. Sonnet 72 (2:00): MP3
    
57. Sonnet 73 (1:21): MP3
    
58. Sonnet 74 (1:12): MP3
    
59. Sonnet 75 (0:49): MP3
    
60. Sonnet 76 (1:15): MP3
    
61. Sonnet 77 (0:59): MP3
    
62. Sonnet 78 (1:24): MP3
    
63. Sonnet 81 (0:53): MP3
    
64. Sonnet 82 (1:20): MP3
    
65. Sonnet 83 (1:59): MP3
    
66. Sonnet 84 (1:06): MP3
    
67. Sonnet 85 (0:54): MP3
    
68. Sonnet 87 (0:55): MP3
    
69. Sonnet 88 (0:55): MP3
    

• Complete Reading with introduction (1:22:42): MP3
• Complete Reading without introduction (1:13:14): MP3

Higher quality version courtesy of Simon Pettet:

• Part 1 (46:50): MP3
• Part 2 (38:52): MP3

Recording introduced by Kush.

These selections are available in the following publications:

• The Sonnets. New York: Lorenz and Ellen Gude, 1964.
• The Sonnets. 2nd Edition: New York: Grove Press, 1966.
• The Sonnets. 3rd Edition: New York: United Artists, 1982.
• The Sonnets. Introduction by Alice Notley & Footnotes by Ted Berrigan & Alice Notley, with seven sonnets restored, New York: Penguin Books, 2000.

Reading at the Naropa Institute, June 1980

• Complete Reading (30:14): MP3

Ted Berrigan and Allen Ginsberg in conversation with students, Norman, OK, April 23, 1980

• Side A (47:48): MP3
• Side B (47:35): MP3

Via Allen Ginsberg.

Courtesy of Simon Pettet.

Reading, February 1980

Courtesy of Simon Pettet.

• Complete recording (46:13): MP3
• Includes Ted Berrigan’s introduction and comments, "Cranston Near the City Line", "Wind", then three from "Easter Monday", "Chicago Morning", "Newtown" and "The End", then "From a List of the Delusions of the Insane", commenting "I just do what it is I do", remarks on Cubist painting and technique, commenting "I have great theories. I can’t entirely remember what they are. I like rhyme a lot. I love the old-fashioned music. I’m strictly a formalist", reading "Personal Poem #9", "Crystal", commenting "The summation of my entire life and career!", reading "Ten Things I Do Every Day" (for Jack Collom), "Remembered Poem", discussion on Ron Padgett’s Anthology of New York Poets (ordered by weight!), "Conversations (Wesley Jackson)", "She", "I Used to Be but Now I Am", "In the Wheel", "So Long Jimi, Janis", introductory comments on "Biographica Literaria", "Tom Clark" (after John Clare!), "Frank O’Hara", "Scorpio", and from elsewhere, "Words for Love", "Personal Poem #7", "Personal Poem #9", and "Ten Things I Do Every Day"

Reading with Chip Delany at West End Bar, 1980

Courtesy of Simon Pettet.

• Side A (31:30): MP3
• Includes Ted Berrigan introducing Samuel R. Delany, 1980


• Side B (31:34): MP3
• Includes Ted Berrigan at West End Bar, introduced by Anne Waldman, c. 1980

• Complete Reading (36:55): MP3

Two Readings: March 5, 1975 and April 25, 1979

Watch on Media.sas
• Complete recording (59:50)

Interview and Reading on In The American Tree, hosted by Lyn Hejinian & Kit Robinson, KPFA, Berkeley, August 11, 1978

1. Comments (0:28): MP3
2. Whitman In Black (1:09): MP3
3. Buddha on the Bounty (1:28): MP3
4. Here I Live (2:00): MP3
5. Comments (10:39): MP3
6. Chicago Morning (1:53): MP3
7. New Town (1:09): MP3
8. The End (1:20): MP3
9. From a List of Delusions of the Insane (What They are Afraid Of) (1:10): MP3
10. Comments (9:14): MP3
11. Personal Poem #9 (1:15): MP3
12. Crystal (1:43): MP3
13. Comments (1:50): MP3
14. Three Pages (0:44): MP3
15. Remembered Poem (0:25): MP3

Full Interview and Reading (36:33): MP3

Reading The Sonnets, New York City, December 10, 1978

Art gallery/space in the area of First Avenue near Houston. Organized by Jim Brodey

• intro by Ron Padgett and Rochelle Kraut singing (14:09): MP3
• complete reading (bad audio from about 11:00-30:00) (1:17:51): MP3

This recording is from the collection of Robert Creeley

Ted Berrigan reads from and comments on Easter Monday, included in his Collected Poems, 1978, Location Unknown

• Side A (30:45): MP3
• Includes Ted Berrigan introducing Easter Monday (striving for "an impressionism of words"), reading "Chicago Morning", "Newton", "The End", "Method Action", "Swinburne and Watts-Dutton", "Soviet Souvenir", "Old-Fashioned Air", "The Ancient Art of Wooing", "Late November", "At Loma Linda", and "L.G.G.T.T.H."


• Side B (30:33): MP3
• Includes Ted Berrigan reading stanza from "Peking", then "Chicago English Afternoon", "She" (not to be confused with She, a girl), "Innocents Abroad", "Sister Moon", "An Orange Clock", "Gainsborough", "Easter Monday", "Four Gates to the City", "In Blood", "The Joke and the Stars", "Where the Ceiling Light Burns", "So Going around Cities", "Quarter to Three", "Picnic" (with Addenda), as well as, from elsewhere, brief comments on "Biographica Literaria"

Courtesy of Simon Pettet.

From The World Record: Readings at the St. Mark's Poetry Project, 1969-1980

1. Things to Do in New York City (0:48): MP3
2. Landscape with Figures (Southampton) (0:40): MP3
3. Frank O'Hara (1:17): MP3

Appearing on Public Access Poetry with Harris Schiff, August 4, 1977

1. Introduction (0:35): MP3
2. Boulder (1:08): MP3
3. A Little American Feedback (1:09): MP3
4. Picnic (1:07): MP3
5. Carrying a Torch (1:09): MP3
6. A Note from Yang-Kuan (1:09): MP3
7. Work Postures (0:50): MP3
8. A Meeting at the Bridge (1:34): MP3
9. In 4 Parts (0:55): MP3
10. Erasable Picabia (1:55): MP3
11. From A List of the Delusions of the Insane, What They Are Afraid Of (0:40): MP3
12. Late November (0:44): MP3

• Complete Recording (27:36): MP3

Ted Berrigan reading, likely home recording, 1974, Location Unknown

• Side A (31:37): MP3
• Side B (31:28): MP3

Includes Berrigan reading "Service at Upway", commenting "I have only one work and I hardly know what it is", reading from correspondence ("alive and well", "I’m living in Battersea, July 1973"), "Chicago Morning", "Newton", "The End", "Sandy’s Sunday Best", "He", "She", "Communism" (referred to as "a radical work of mine"), "Red Air", sharing an "improvisational…collaborative tape" of Berrigan and Anne Waldman reading "Memorial Day", Berrigan reading "Ten Things about the Boston Trip", commenting "My poetry is domestic. It’s conversational, it’s concerned with rooms and streets and the household gods - that’s what i’m interested in actually. I’m also interested in everything else but I do what I can do", reading "Conversation ("My Name Is Wesley Jackson"), "She", "Wind", "What I’d Like for Christmas 1970", "In the Wheel" (for William Carlos Williams), "Landscape with Figures (Southampton), "Ezra Pound/A Witness", "Paul Blackburn", "Sunday Morning", and "Apologies to Val & Tom"

Courtesy of Simon Pettet

1. Introduction (1:15): MP3
2. Wishes (2:09): MP3
3. Ophelia (1:51): MP3
4. Poem (for Larry Fagin) (0:13): MP3
5. Things to Do In Bolinas (1:06): MP3
6. Today in Ann Arbor (3:04): MP3
7. People Who Died (2:27): MP3
8. Three Sonnets and a Coda for Tom Clark (4:09): MP3
9. What I'd Like for Christmas, 1970 (1:15): MP3
10. Southampton Business (3:44): MP3
11. Wrong Train (1:45): MP3
12. Frank O'Hara (1:36): MP3
13. Crystal (1:32): MP3
14. Words for Love (3:39): MP3
15. Things To Do In Providence (7:30): MP3

Ted Berrigan and Anne Waldman, "Memorial Day," the St. Mark's Poetry Project, May 5, 1971

Complete reading (26:33): MP3

read Michael S. Hennessey's "Recovering 'Memorial Day'" on Jacket2

Reading at Buffalo with Introduction by Robert Creeley, May 6, 1968

1. Introduction (Robert Creeley; cut off) (0:27): MP3
2. Introduction (Berrigan) (0:37): MP3
3. Words For Love (2:08): MP3
4. Personal Poem #7 (0:57): MP3
5. Living with Chris (2:07): MP3
6. Many Happy Returns (1:46): MP3
7. For You (1:04): MP3
8. Things To Do In New York City (0:50): MP3
9. Frank O'Hara's Question (1:30): MP3
10. Resolution (0:37): MP3
11. A Personal Memoir of Tulsa, Oklahoma / 1955-60 (3:11): MP3
12. Long Time No See (0:38): MP3
13. Que Sera Sera (0:16): MP3
14. December (0:17): MP3
15. Tooting My Horn On Duty (0:55): MP3
16. In Four Parts (1:08): MP3
17. A Man Saw a Ball of Gold (0:45): MP3
18. The Groundhog (1:07): MP3
19. Birches (0:24): MP3
20. Poem (1:05): MP3
21. Introduction to The Sonnets (1:00): MP3
22. Sonnet XXXVI (1:21): MP3
23. Sonnet XXXVII (0:53): MP3
24. Sonnet XLVI (0:39): MP3
25. Sonnet XLVIII (0:45): MP3
26. Sonnet L (0:40): MP3
27. Sonnet LI (0:49): MP3
28. Sonnet LII (0:43): MP3
29. Sonnet LIII (0:43): MP3
30. Sonnet LV (0:51): MP3
31. Sonnet LXX (0:56): MP3
32. Sonnet LXXII (0:49): MP3
33. Sonnet LXXIV (0:43): MP3
34. Sonnet LXXV (0:44): MP3
35. Sonnet LXXVI (1:02): MP3
36. Sonnet LXXX (0:49): MP3
37. Sonnet LXXXII (1:06): MP3
38. Sonnet LXXXVII (0:47): MP3
39. A Final Sonnet (Sonnet LXXXVIII) (1:00): MP3

Complete reading (43:30): MP3

Recording thanks to Robert Creeley.

Unknown Reading, Unknown Date

• Partial recording (4:30): MP3

Philip Whalen lecture on Ted Berrigan's The Sonnets, The Poetry Project at St. Mark's, NYC, 1989

Courtesy of Simon Pettet.

• Part 1 (47:55): MP3
• Part 2 (47:34): MP3

Miscellaneous readings

"Whitman in Black" (1:04): MP3, video on YouTube

Excerpt of Memorial Day with Anne Waldman from Alchemical Elegy (2001) (5:00): MP3, full video on YouTube

Ted Berrigan on PennSound Daily

• November 15, 2010: "Happy Birthday, Ted Berrigan!"
• August 26, 2009: "Ted Berrigan Reading at Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco, August 1971"
• April 3, 2007: "PoemTalk #5: Ted Berrigan's '3 Pages'"
• November 15, 2007: "Ted Berrigan on 'In the American Tree', 1978"

These sound recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to Alice Notley for the Estate of Ted Berrigan. © 2004 Alice Notley. Used with permission of Alice Notley. Distributed by PennSound.