An Anthology of New York Poets

by Ron Padgett (Editor), David Shapiro (Editor), James Schuyler (Contributor)

Genres: Poetry, Anthologies

588 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Ron Padgett is a poet and translator whose Collected Poems won the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America and the 2014 Los Angeles Times Prize for the best poetry book. Padgett has translated the poetry of Apollinaire, Pierre Reverdy, Valery Larbaud, and Blaise Cendrars.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading An Anthology of New York Poets, one can't help but wonder "Where are the women?" There's no way Bernadette Mayer is the only woman writing poetry in New York in the sixties (the anthology was published in 1970). Barbara Guest is conspicuously absent, despite having at least three books published before 1970 (more than some of the men represented here).

The twenty-six men and one woman writing poetry in New York in the sixties are as follows:

James Schuyler...

How about an oak leaf
if you had to be a leaf?
Suppose you had your life to live over
knowing what you know?
Suppose you had plenty money

"Get away from me you little fool."

Evening of a day in early March,
you are like the smell of drains
in a restaurant where pâté maison
is a slab of cold meat loaf
damp and wooly. You lack charm.

- Poem, pg. 23

Clark Coolidge...

listene
secting
erences

miliari
ontempt
opposit

compani
bilitie
pontane

nerousl
ercussi
ndition

aluable
rievabl
fluence

berness
ionalis
deliber

- pg. 40

Kenward Elmslie...

From the tug the shore crops are merely blurry wilderness
much as in chase dreams of dogs, stones have smells
volatile as cities in a holiday mood
where getting on and off platforms cones the night's events.
We on the tug recall death in the trees,
parachutists gliding down to mined branches, all seen in mirrors.

- Flaming Creatures, pg. 51

Ted Berrigan...

- Bean Spasms, pg. 72-78

Harry Matthews...

The society in my head
Said the viper in the washrag
Having no creator, requires my love:
"Eton pets who lag in their Latin
At a slow trot, who become of note
Reversing their school-step (as the apple ate Adam),"
And such - innocents whose Eden is need.
Divination without divinity
Affirmed the viper in the twirled spaghetti
Morse-tusks clatter in paleocrystic seas
My absurd blood is thin chrism
For my creatures by default, the default not mine:
I trace the dancing of their secular swarm.

- The Sense of Responsibility, pg. 90

Tony Towle...

The sky is cut into sections and put on a frame.
Part of the sky is covered with clouds.
Machines rise and descend.
The portions of the sky blend together.
The plot requires a flowing river.
It comes down from the mountains.
A road winds parallel to the river.
Fish are set in motion.
The people in the shops are on the streets move.
The clouds go from one end of the sky to the other.
The arms and the hands are loose and relaxed.
Conversation comes spontaneously.
It is a few years later.
The nest four years show great achievement.
The remaining years are disappointing.

- Poem, pg. 104

Tom Clark...

My heart in pieces like the bits
Of traffic lost in the blue
Rain confused I roar off into
To learn how to build a ladder
With air in my lungs again
To be with you in that region
Of speed and altitude where our bodies
Sail off to be kissed and changed
By light that behaves like a hand
Picking us up in one state and putting
Us down in a different one every time

- Poem, pg. 125

Kenneth Koch...

- You Were Wearing, pg. 138

Tom Veitch...

The last time I slept was when
I went with R. Padgett, noted poet
And money-lender, to see
A movie called "Dog Eat Dog."
That movie was rather funny.
It had to do with a dog
Who didn't like his friend dog
So he ate him.
After it was over everybody puked
And left.

- The Last Time, pg. 168

Lewis Mac Adams...

Too late, when you show some
unconcern, too late, gentle one person
loving you, honestly, over there
by the pace drift, heater
drying her hair. When it's time
she's ready, but
you're due somewhere.
Awash with angels,
Reading alone in her chair.

- Warm Tea, pg. 186

John Ashbery...

- Last Month, pg. 213-214

Frank Lima...

Two
Gorillas
In
My
Head

Light
Twelve
Candles
In
My
Head.

- Poem, pg. 243

John Giorno...

A bearded outlaw
who claimed
he was an immortal
descendant
of God
was killed
last night
by the police.

- Outlaw, pg. 251

Joseph Ceravolo...

Down near "The river
barges" I looked around me
Where could I wait?

My friend was always
human I threw myself
beside; I turned the
new head

I took his paw It
was tender And kissed
its texture Like a
bee

Stars were darker
I felt the oil
in the sand

- Spring of Work Storm, pg. 274

John Perreault...

I am not anyone in particular.
A chewing-gum wrapper.
A streetlight.

Still, somehow I manage to exist.
And as each day starts
I manage to leave my nice warm bed,
feeling that perhaps today
something beautiful will happen.

It never does.
This in itself is beautiful.

I am not anyone in particular.
A philosophical shoe.
A sheet of paper.

Perhaps I am lying.
(Another one of my very bad habits.)
If so,
at least no one can be hurt
by such slight deceptions.

- No One in Particular, pg. 321

Bill Berkson...

A simple weight attached
and a circle raised alone
(no strings)
to a great height.
Then let fall.
There is nothing missing,
and the space around is all.

The space you see is all.

- Stanky, pg. 344

Michael Brownstein...

Waitress
You bring my food, I give you money
I am full of food now and ready to go
But you still have to wait

- Waitress, pg. 356

Peter Schjeldahl...

No, I would not like to meet Bob Dylan

Yes, I would welcome the opportunity
To visit Vienna in the company
Of a cultured and relatively pro-American
Resident of that city

What could I say to Bob Dylan?
I would have to "invent" something - ugh!

To the native of Vienna I would say, To throw
The "curve ball" hold it thusly, along
The seams, and "snap" your wrist at the moment
Of delivery If you are successful, the batter
Should first lean back, then flail wildly
At your accurate pitch, giving you a sense of satisfaction
Understandable in any language

- Citizen, pg. 393

Frank O'Hara...

- Ave Maria, pg. 419-420

Aram Saroyan...

a man stands
on his
head one
minute -

then he
sit
down all
different

- pg. 450

Ron Padgett...

I will sleep
in my little cup

- December, pg. 458

Dick Gallup...

It will snow tomorrow
But today it is still Fall
In Union Square
WHere New York City trees
Are dressed in the simple words
Of love in a coupé
On a street without stoops
Devoted this Thanksgiving Day
To Mrs. something Swopes
Dead at 77.

- La Bohème, pg. 489

Bernadette Mayer...

I am beginning to alter
The location of this harbour
Which now meets with a channel
Joining one place with another.
Then it continues
As if in a town
The artfulness of a hand
Full of some things
And not others.
The eye rests
And we see
What is before
Everything else the same.
Though this implies a beginning
To which we ascribe no point
Nevertheless it has an end,
For no bishop of any importance
Constructs his tomb in a bad time.

The end which comes
Is not as important as the motion
Held in the air
Pausing in its course.
To switch then
Reverses the train
Of a running line,
And as before
May wheel and address
To a new location
To be seen beneath.
This flying conversion
Sets the scene
To a bell.

I have told more
Than can be seen.
The bell makes it trick
More than an opera.
If you have seen the world from a ship
Then you have not seen
What the ship lets fall into the sea
To blacken its top and make it grow.
To get out of this seaport
You must be a cutter of networks.

- Poem, pg. 503-504

Edwin Denby...

I myself like the climate of New York
I see it in the air up between the street
You use a worn-down cafeteria fork
But the climate you don't use stays fresh and neat.
Even we people who walk about in it
We have to submit to wear too, get muddy,
Air keeps changing bu the nose ceases to fit
And sleekness is used up, and the end's shoddy.
Monday, you're down; Tuesday, dying seems a fuss
An adult looks new in the weather's motion
The sky is in the streets with the trucks and us,
Stands awhile, then lifts across land and ocean.
We can take it for granted that here we're home
In our record climate I look pleased or glum.

- The Climate, pg. 510

David Shapiro...

I see the winter turned around
like pleasure make the cabinet wail
when I open it, make the girls go
through the curtains again
and fold the shiny parts

The shiny roots are fired, the balls
in the sycamores
are swinging.
A talented bicycle rider
flew out of the winter for a sad party.

I'll stick that man in a tree,
especially without hooks,
without the jocks to meet those horrifying spooks,
like the bicycle rider
irrationally dropping his books.

- The Bicycle Rider, pg. 531

[Mikael · Rating 3 out of 5]

john giorno yo the best

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This out of print book had to go back from where it came from. My dog also wouldn't let me finish it. You don't really finish reading a book like this anyway. It just keeps reading over you.

Beautiful and gross and unfinished in my mind like all the best things.

Now I can begin to forget it and misremember it.

And also mourn a past and present where plenty of humans are still missing from this picture. So brave to include some stars but find plenty of stars still missing.

What's a book to do about its authors and editors? Or it's readers and reviewers?