Great balls of fire

by Ron Padgett

Poetry. Ron Padgett's sparkling gem of a collection receives new polish in this revised edition. Out of print for eighteen years, these poems, full of wit and a sense of the unexpected, are now ready for a new generation of poetry lovers.

Genres: Poetry

86 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

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

[sarah]

I can't wait to sell this book. His poems made me feel like I was spending an afternoon cleaning every spoke on a bike tire that has been caked in grime for five years. I read 40 pages through and skimmed the rest. (so if there are great poems after page 40 I'd really like to know) I respect his experimental qualities but didn't find any elements of surprise. I'm kind of disappointed, because these poems aren't ordinary. They aren't ordinary, but they feel like it, which turns me off because they don't feel sincerely ordinary, they feel like they were crafted and molded into something else. I guess I just don't really like his "jokey flowing word piles".

[Mike]

A couple of these poems were very good but overall I found the collection just alright. Padgett is a great poet it's just a lot of this book didn't do much for me.

[Colin]

“There is no windshield” energy

[Eddie Watkins]

Though I fear he's becoming a fuddy-duddy these days (it can happen to the best of us), these early poems flicker funnily with a wild abstract fire. Gorgeous jokey flowing word piles.

[Peter]

'If it makes sense, it's not poetry'

Downtown NY early 70's classic.

'Sometimes there are no words but these to tell what's true'