Free Cell

Author: Anselm Berrigan

Publisher: City Lights (2009)

The second installment of the City Lights Spotlight poetry series, Free Cell is the latest collection from Anselm Berrigan, one of the most significant American poets under 40. Consisting of two experimental suites–“Have a Good One” and “To Hell with Sleep”–connected by the central poem “Let Us Sample Protection Together,” Free Cell is Berrigan’s most ambitious work to date, a spiritual autobiography wrapped in an exploration of form. His work combines the freneticism of his New York environment with oblique humor, political angst, and a reflective, lyrical interrogation of his own subjectivity: “For my part it’s / been an honor / to be at someone’s / service, though doing / so has diminished / my expiration date / and my astral self- / projection has already / fled in bitter tears / having used up even addiction.”