Get the Money!

Get the Money! was Ted Berrigan's mantra for the paid writing gigs he took on in support of his career as a poet. This long-awaited collection of his essential prose-written between 1960 and his early death in 1983-draws upon the many essays, reviews, introductions, and other texts he produced for hire, as well as material from his journals, travelogues, and assorted, unclassifiable creative texts. Get the Money! documents Berrigan's innovative poetics and techniques, as well as the creative milieu around the East Village New York's Poetry Project for which he served as both nurturer and catalyst. Highlights include his journals from the '60s, depicting his early poetic discoveries and bohemian activities in New York; the previously unpublished "Some Notes About 'C,'" an account of his mimeo magazine that serves as a de facto memoir of the early days of the second-generation New York School ; a moving and prescient obituary, "Frank O'Hara Dead at 40" ; book "reviews" consisting of poems entirely collaged from lines in the book ; insightful art reviews of friends and collaborators like Joe Brainard, George Schneeman, and Jane Freilicher; and his notorious "Interviews" with John Cage and John Ashbery, both of which were completely fabricated. Get the Money! provides a view into the development of Berrigan's aesthetics in real time, as he captures the heady excitement of the era and champions the poets and artists he loves"--