Get the Money!: Collected Prose (1961-1983)

Get the Money! is a collection of Ted Berrigan's essential prose writings, including essays, reviews, introductions, and journals, providing a window into his poetics, techniques, and the creative milieu of the New York School. The book showcases Berrigan's innovative poetics, class awareness, sentimentality, and anarchic humor, and offers a superhuman range of formal invention.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 300 pages
Publication date: 03 November 2022
Publisher: City Lights Books

A colossal milestone in American poetry, Get the Money! brings together the essential prose writings of iconic New York School poet Ted Berrigan.

"Ted Berrigan was a leader of the New York School; his crazy energy embodied that movement and the city itself." — John Ashbery, author of Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

"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 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 of poets — centered around New York's Poetry Project — for whom 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his journals from the 60s, depicting his early poetic discoveries and bohemian activities in New York; the previously unpublished "Some Notes About 'C," an account of his mimeo magazine that serves as a de facto memoir of the early days of the second-generation New York School; a moving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 OHara Dead at 40"; book "reviews" consisting of poems entirely collaged from lines in the book; 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.

Praise for Get the Money!:

Get the Money! captures the esprit de corps of the particular.

Weight: 628g
Dimension: 191 x 234 x 25 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780872868953