Ron Padgett

How to Be Perfect

Alone and not alone

Kenneth Koch

The classic, inspiring account of a poet's experience teaching school children to write poetry When Kenneth Koch entered the Manhattan classrooms of P.S. 61, the children, excited by the opportunity to work with an instructor able to inspire their talent and energy, would clap and shout with pleasure. In this vivid account, Koch describes his inventive methods for teaching these children how to create poems and gives numerous examples of their work. Wishes, Lies, and Dreams is a valuable text for all those who care about freeing the creative imagination and educating the young.

Teaching Children to Write Poetry

Wishes, Lies, and Dreams

Fifty years of poems and wry insight celebrating one of the most dynamic careers in twentieth century American poetry.

Collected Poems

A reference guide to various forms of poetry with entries arranged in alphabetical order. Each entry defines the form and gives its history, examples, and suggestions for usage.

The Teachers & Writers Handbook of Poetic Forms

"Eat an orange every morning." "Make eye contact with a tree." "Wear comfortable shoes." Ron Padgett's ninety-nine-line prescription for human perfection is both tongue-in-cheek and deeply felt, solidly good advice. In this offbeat, warm, humorous edition, each line springs to life with Novak's cartoonsa glorious match-up of sensibilities. And remember, "After dinner, wash the dishes." Ron Padgett's "How Long "was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in poetry and his "Collected Poems "won the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America and the "Los Angeles Times "Book Prize for the best poetry book of 2013. His work has been translated into eighteen languages. Jason Novak is a cartoonist whose work has appeared in the "New Yorker "the "Paris Review "and the "Believer "among other places. He lives in Oakland, California."

An Illustrated Guide

Non praticare il cannibalismo. 100 poesie

Poems

Great Balls of Fire

Edwin Denby

Poems explore a variety of themes including friendship, alienation, and art and portray life in New York City.

The Complete Poems

A reissue of the New York School poet's 1969 collection. "Padgett's volume is a work of wit, crackling and inventive."--Yale Review

Motor Maids Across America

Following Pulitzer Prize finalist Ron Padgett's 2013's Collected Poems (winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the William Carlos Williams Prize) Alone and Not Alone offers new poems that see the world in a clear and generous light. From "The World of Us": Don't go around all day thinking about life— doing so will raise a barrier between you and its instants. You need those instants so you can be in them, and I need you to be in them with me for I think the world of us and the mysterious barricades that make it possible.

Alone and Not Alone

Ted Berrigan

Joe Brainard

Ted Berrigan, Joe Brainard and Ron Padgett's Bean Spasmsis the defining publication of the 1960s literary/Pop scene in New York. Originally published in 1967 by Kulchur Press in an edition of 1,000, and out of print for more than 40 years, Bean Spasmsis a book many have heard about but relatively few have seen, and which--until now--has been consequently shrouded in legend. The text is comprised of collaborations between poets Ted Berrigan and Ron Padgett, with further writings, illustrations and cover by artist and writer Joe Brainard. The three began collaborating in 1960, and kept a folder of their works titled "Lyrical Bullets" (a humorous homage to the well-known collaboration between Coleridge and Wordsworth, Lyrical Ballads). As Ron Padgett describes, in his introduction to this new facsimile edition, their collaborations included "plays, a fictitious correspondence, a picaresque novel, goofy interviews and poems of various types and lengths, as well as mistranslations and parodies of each other's work and the work of others." Poet friends dropping by during writing sessions would also add lines, and although Berrigan and Padgett also contributed visuals, and Brainard contributed texts, all works in the book were intentionally left unattributed. Full of wild wit and joy in experimentation, competition and collaboration, Bean Spasmsis a classic document of the New York School.

Collaborations

Bean Spasms

Contemplative, wry, profound observations from one of the greatest masters of contemporary poetry.

Big Cabin

This book aims to enlarge the possibilities of reading by suggesting ways to make reading more imaginative and by encouraging a new attitude toward the act of reading. The book discusses the mystery of learning to read, the physiology and psychology of reading, the ongoing contests between various methods of instruction. It guides readers through their own personal histories with a series of questions related to their reading habits before beginning school, in school, and after completing their formal educations. After a brief discussion of common reading errors that can be used creatively, the central chapter of the book, "Creative Reading Techniques," suggests exercises that make reading an adventure, highly interactive, and imaginative, using both classic and modern literature in ways that blend reading and writing. Along the way, among other things, the book talks about the influence of typography, movies, and television on reading, the joys of misunderstanding, the music of Spike Jones, skywriting, Dada poetry, reading in dreams, the way words sound in the reader's head, and the setting in which text is read. (NKA)

What it Is, how to Do It, and why

Creative Reading

In a new poetry collection, Pulitzer Prize finalist Ron Padgett illuminates the wonders inside even the smallest experiences. In Dot, Ron Padgett returns with more of the playfully profound work that has endeared him to generations of readers. Guided by curiosity and built on wit, generosity of spirit, and lucid observation, Dot shows how any experience, no matter how mundane, can lead to a poem that flares like gentle fireworks in the night sky of the reader’s mind.

LC copy inscribed by the author: For Linda, with love, Ron.

A Personal Memoir of Ted Berrigan

The Adventures of Mr. and Mrs. Jim and Ron

Ron Padgett's playful, nonchalant poetry is all delightful circumstance without the pomp.

Ron Padgett

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