You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello and welcome to Bookworm.

This is Michael Silverblatt.

Today my guest is Ron Padgett.

Ron's new and selected poems is available in paperback from David Godine in Boston.

These poems go back as far as the early 60s when Ron Padgett arrived in New York from Tulsa

and began making poetry that mixes surrealism, pop, and New York downtown weirdness.

I first saw Ron Padgett, who I think of as being serious in foolish situations and informal in serious ones,

making donkey ears behind someone being photographed for a serious group portrait, and I thought,

I want to know that man. Eventually, making my way through poets of the New York School, beginning

with my hero, Kenwood Elmsley, I found myself reading Ron Padgett and his late New York to Tulsa

friends, Joe Brainerd and Ted Berrigan.

I wanted to begin by asking you, to my left, I have a big pile of books by Ron Padgett.

To my right, I have a pile of books translated by Ron Patchett, and in the middle, I have books written by Ron Padgett with others. How do you go about selecting poems for a book that is now 90 pages long and covers a whole career?

You mean this new and selected poems?

From Godine.

Well, let's see, I just took out all my books and turned through them and put a little

mark next to the ones that still seemed to have a little hit for me and made a gigantic selection

since I love my own work so much. And actually, I gave the selection to my wife and she threw

...