The Personal Poems is a correspondence between two poets (Tom Bourguignon and myself) stretching from 2005 to 2006. The title of the collection is a nod to both Frank O’Hara and Ted Berrigan, in that order. In 1959, FOH wrote a poem entitled “Personal Poem.” After Ted Berrigan moved to NYC in the early 60s, he became friends with O’Hara and wrote his own FOH-inspired poems (Personal Poem, Personal Poem #2, Personal Poem #7, Personal Poem #9).
If you are not familiar with FOH’s poetry, it is worth mentioning that the immediacy of his poems is a well-known signature of his work. The immediacy of Berrigan’s “takes” on O’Hara’s style is equally seductive and engaging.
Tom and I realized that “Personal Poem” by FOH and Berrigan’s later poems were a great model for a correspondence—for a manuscript with an epistolary format. The idea of keeping in touch through poems that adopted a letter-writing flavor allowed us to experiment and generate a fair number of poems.
Tom was in NYC; I was in Lansing, Michigan. He was going to school, and separated from his love by distance. I was an aspiring artist, raising kids and holding down part-time work.
It was an enjoyable, productive collaboration.
_
Personal poem, Sep. 25, 2005, eight forty-three
at night, in the Staten Island Ferry terminal, waiting
for the nine-thirty ferry home. My fiancée
hit the ignore button on her cell when I called,
and as I sit here wondering why I continue
to write
the poem of my day which, in this moment,
consists in pigeons wandering through the terminal,
but the floors are mopped & waxed & there’s no food
for them, I think my mind is mopped &
waxed, too, & as for what I should do about it
I’m not too certain. Being a thousand miles from
Gail is too much—my mind is tired from keeping
myself busy so I won’t realize how lonely I am & how
miserable I am without her around.
Little things creep
up, tomorrow’s reading, that worries me; teaching
Tuesday at the hospital; getting my poem revised &
my Old English done. Do things get done in the
world, anymore? I think, the older I get, the
less I get done per day. I guess I hope I live
a long time—
____
Sunday, September 11th, 2005, we get up
& take the kids downtown for a brunch that
doesn’t suck, or so I lie to myself after
Sheila returns an omelet laced with hair,
such a brave girl, sincere, much braver
than I, who would’ve left it untouched
& paid full price
Outside the sky blue & above us inspires
the windows of buildings which’ve seen
brighter Sundays after football games
during which the home fans tore up
the turf, we must get back to passion
like that, to supreme hatred or effluent
love, forgetting what day it is amidst
discussions of corporate greed with an
eleven-year-old & I still haven’t made it
back to New York, undiscovered &
hungry
