Anselm Berrigan

Bio

Anselm Berrigan was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1972 to poets Alice Notley and Ted Berrigan. Although very little is mentioned of how much time he spent there as a child, it is known that soon after his parents moved to New York City where his father found work editing various art magazines and books. Over time, Anselm has given his parents much of the credit for his early education, naming then as one of the primary reasons he was able to read by the age of four. Of these years, very little is talked about, other than the death of his father Ted Berrigan when he was only 10 years old.
It is possible that for his own motivations, Anselm chose not to talk about the impact this had on his upbringing, but what is known is that he got along fairly well with his stepfather (British poet Douglas Oliver.) Anselm also mentions that early on in his education, he would read the poetry of his own parents (particularly his father) in an attempt to understand them better. Academically driven, primarily through the efforts of his parents, Anselm attended New York’s famous Stuyvesant High School where he soon found himself reading and writing more than he could ever have thought himself capable of. Although initially a shy and quiet type, Anselm ran track his junior and senior year, making friends and enjoying their company at school more than the actual education he received there.
In 1990, Anselm attended SUNY-Buffalo where he took up working for their school newspaper. That paper, which came out three times a week in a circulation of 12,000 people, is credited with producing some of his first works of poetry. Originally a reporter for the paper, Anselm began to feel limited by the kind of writing he was doing for them, so he began keeping a notebook where he wrote some short fiction as well as his first attempts at poetry (his first poems being written his second year at college.) Following this, he completed his MFA program at Brooklyn College where he met and studied under poet Allen Ginsberg.
After completing his program Anselm moved to San Francisco, California where he didn’t know a single person, in an attempt to center his life on poetry. Working odd jobs where he could, he fell into the poet community out there continuing his writing until he found work as the artistic director at The Saint Mark’s Poetry Project in New York in 2003. He was artistic director there until 2007 and he is currently working as the co-chair of the writing program at Bard College MFA program and is a professor at Wesleyan University.

Works Written
On the Premises, 1995.

They Beat Me Over the Head With a Sack, 1998.

Integrity & Dramatic Life, 1999.

In the Dream Hole, 2001.

Zero Star Hotel, 2002.

"Pictures for Private Devotion", 2003.

Some Notes on My Programming, 2006.




Moods

Fast-
(All his thoughts come at you real fast)

Fire escape slashes feet dude
But thanks for the intro to nudie
Mags & staying all day sitting

To be pointed in the direction
Of acid nail-biting and told to go
& to go, sad, away from the repeating
-Opening to “Jim Brody”

Questioning-

Who cares?/I should have been, but I was what, thirteen?
-“Jim Brody”

Do I argue for reality’s underpinning to dissolve?/Is faith in stability preferable to the truth?
-To manage the inevitable with aplomb”

Do I feel like an animal staring up at the dental light?
-“To protect my piracy”

Structural-
(He makes use of the structure in which a poem is written to convey message and purpose. He will either write a poem in a long thin (like a newspaper) column, or he will write in “wisps” or other such structures to emphasis the shape and structure of his writing…examples include):

“To Protect my Piracy”
“A true account of talking to myself on the #4 line”
“Ode to the Paranoid”

Rambling-
(In his column style poems, he usually finishes the sentences he starts on one line, in the second or third line after it.)

I answer horn first time
For weeks from can & say
"In the study with a leadpipe"
To Graham & ask him if he's feeling
Flexible. I am feeling Shelley
& an outline. Red lines over black
-“The Pursuit”

Closure-
(Oftentimes his poems are built so that you always find a form of closure at the end, if not a tie-in comment referring to an earlier statement he may have made within the poem)

I answer horn first time
For weeks from can & say
"In the study with a leadpipe"
-Opening to “The Pursuit”

My leg. I want you autonomy
In the conservatory with a candlestick
Where I will be just and mild
and free and wise.
-Ending of “The Pursuit”

Style
Anselm Berrigan doesn’t consider himself a student of any particular movement or style. It should be noted however that his father (Ted Berrigan) was a member of the second generation of the New York School of poetry. Anselm does admit that he read his father’s poetry early on in life and that following those years he started to get a sense of where line breaks and other important factors to his writing should be. His mentor, Allen Ginsberg, is a also a well known beat era poet. Beat era poets tended to write more about their rejection of American values, experimentation (with drugs and sex), and freedom. Not too many of these things filter into Anselm’s style, however bits and pieces of all of these influences to show in his writings. Because of the various poets that he has come into contact with, his style is so varied and unique to him. What can be noted is that stream of consciousness is a regular writing style he implements, as well as internal dialogue.

Fellow Poets

Anselm Berrigan is a real hard artist to pin down in terms of impact because he is simply too young. He is 36 years old, which puts him on Earth for quite a bit, however, in the world of poetry he still hasn’t put in enough time to have other poets specifically name him as one of their influences.

Anselm has recently admitted to being influenced by his own father’s writing (Ted Berrigan.) What started as an attempt to get to know his late father a little better, became a study in poetry for Anselm when he began piecing his own poems in a style very much like Ted’s. Ted (who did meet Frank O’ Hara) Berrigan and his spur of the moment, stream of consciousness style definitely appealed to a younger Anselm who was attempting to make his way into the world of poetry, and the conversations that he holds in his mind (and later writes down) become real mental exercises when you sit down to try to follow along.

Anselm has also mentioned that he took a liking to poet and author Langston Hughes. Although Hughes’ style is very much tied into his Harlem, New York years, it form is very much unique to him. Langston’s poems are often based on the rhythms and languages of the contemporary blues and jazz, not necessarily something Anselm emulates, but he does show cognizance of. If anything, Anselm often knows what the rhythm for the way people read his poems will be, and he writes and breaks lines in ways as to read contrary to that.

Works Cited
http://epc.buffalo.edu/ezines/alyric/berrigan.html
http://www.coconutpoetry.org/aberrigan1.htm
http://www.chicagopostmodernpoetry.com/aberrigan.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes
Berrigan, Anselm. Zero star hotel. Edge Publishing Company, Washington DC. 2002