Nice to See You

Homage to Ted Berrigan

Edited by Anne Waldman

1991 • 256 pages
ISBN: 978-0-918273-13-0
Stories, essays, poems, paintings, and photographs

Coffee House Press

Eight years following Ted Berrigan’s death and seven years in the making, this comprehensive anthology is now available to friends, fans, hippies, beats, bards and chroniclers. Nice to See You: Homage to Ted Berrigan, edited by longtime friend and colleague Anne Waldman, is a moving tribute to an important poet. “Let none regret my end who called me friend,” wrote Berrigan in “Last Poem”: this is, instead, a celebration of Berrigan’s high-energy life and work.

Stories, essays, poems, paintings, and photographs by the gifted group of writers and artists who surrounded Berrigan create a compelling portrait of the New York Lower East Side poetry community over which he sometimes seemed to preside. Like Guillaume Apollinaire, he acted as a catalyst, providing inspiration and encouragement to a host of writers and artists. Donna Dennis, Ron Padgett, James Schuyler, Bernadette Mayer, Jasper Johns, Ed Sanders, Andy Warhol, Robert Creeley, Larry Rivers, Amiri Baraka, and Philip Whalen are a few of the distinguished contributors to Nice to See You.

“Fiercely unpretentious, intensely self-absorbed, prodigious in his ambition and energy, Berrigan did more than create a substantial body of poetry. He also embodied a spirit that gave meaning to many other writers’ lives,” wrote Ken Tucker after Berrigan’s death in 1983. Nice to See You testifies to the unique collective spirit that Berrigan personified during his lifetime, and includes 56 pages of photographs and illustrations.

Table of Contents:

  • The Rare Birds; For Ted Berrigan by Amiri Baraka

  • Half Of It by Franco Beltrametti

  • Big Town Will Wear You Down by Edmund Joseph Berrigan

  • Hearts by Edmund Joseph Berrigan

  • I Am 43. When Will I Die? I Will Never Die, I Will Live by Edmund Joseph Berrigan

  • Last Poem by Edmund Joseph Berrigan

  • A Religious Experience by Edmund Joseph Berrigan

  • Small Role Felicity, Sels. by Edmund Joseph Berrigan

  • Sonnet: 37 by Edmund Joseph Berrigan

  • Sonnet: 77 by Edmund Joseph Berrigan

  • Because We're Here by Jim Brodey

  • Homespun by Reed Bye

  • Drysdale And Mantle, Whitey Ford And To You by Steve Carey

  • Slaughter Of The Waking Arms by Steve Carey

  • Calm Under Fire by Jim Carroll

  • Poem For Ted by Maxine Chernoff

  • Ted by Thomas Willard Clark

  • Ted Berrigan Es Muerte by Andrei Codrescu

  • After The Sonnets by Clark Coolidge

  • Dream by Clark Coolidge

  • Providence Going Sketch by Clark Coolidge

  • Strong Shift; For Ted Berrigan by Clark Coolidge

  • Change; For Ted Berrigan by Robert Creeley

  • For Ted Berrigan by Robert Creeley

  • At The Poetry Conference: Berkeley After The New York Style by Robert Duncan

  • Awake On March 27th by Kenward Elmslie

  • On Your Birthday by Larry Fagin

  • 7/4/83 by Carol Gallup

  • Destination Moon; For Ted Berrigan by Dick Gallup

  • Grace by Allen Ginsberg

  • Pinsk After Dark by Allen Ginsberg

  • Reds by Allen Ginsberg

  • Two Scenes by Allen Ginsberg

  • Third Pepsi Right Hand by John Godfrey

  • For Ted by Anselm Hollo

  • Day After Ted Berrigan's Memorial Reading by Joanne Kyger

  • January 12, 1984 %hello '84 by Joanne Kyger

  • This Is Happy Birthday To You Ted by Joanne Kyger

  • On Independence Day by Rose Lesniak

  • Miserable Life by Steve Levine

  • Sonnet For Ted Berrigan by Helen Luster

  • Big Ted by Lewis Macadams

  • Copy Legends With Ted Berrigan by Gerard Joseph Malanga

  • Sestina; For Ted Berrigan by Bernadette Mayer

  • Our Love by Eileen Myles

  • Hey Ted by Maureen Owen

  • 4 Ted by Simon Pettet

  • Ted's Old Man by Tom Pickard

  • 1:31 P.m. June 5th 1970; For Ted Berrigan by Thomas Moore Raworth

  • Chicago by Thomas Moore Raworth

  • The Chicago Poem; For Ted Berrigan And Alice Notley by Jerome Rothenberg

  • Elegy For Ted Berrigan by Edward Sanders

  • He Was A Lousy %pokerplayer by George Scheeman

  • Stretching Out In A Regal Bath by Harris Schiff

  • To The Muse; For Ted Berrigan by Elio Schneeman

  • Canzone; For Ted Berrigan, 1934-1983 by Anne Waldman

  • For The Gifts Of Ted by Anne Waldman

  • Desperately Awaiting The Arrival Of The China Dinner Man by Philip Whalen

  • Impatient Poetry For Ted And Alice B. by Philip Whalen

Previous

Out of This World
Next

Talking Poetics from Naropa Institute