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