Some Notes on My Programming

Author: Anselm Berrigan

Publisher: Edge Books (2006)

Some Notes on My Programming finds Anselm Berrigan, Artistic Director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, once more in funny, irritable, tip-top form. Surveying the Bush-era cultural landscape and not liking what it sees, the poetry herein confronts that reality in terms disgusted ("The group is / an asshole. / Self-censorship / is the American avant-garde") and terrifying ("Dreamt I was chopping off fingers / of mine with audience. Not cool"), encompassing odd disclosure ("I don't want my brother to get a job ever") and biting satire ("Osama passes / George the bong / bitching about 21st century / hydroponic weed"). And yet, even if we are all just "Trained Meat," as the title of one poem suggests, the work here never gives in to despair; we may be "under attack / in mourning / all at once" but we also "better make // room for each / grief letting / me see what / lines and / lies / not to take / and how / moment / by moment / to be." A fantastic and necessary book.