Tag Archives: Poet Ron Padgett

April 2, 2024 Film “Paterson” & Poetry Everywhere, Every Day (Not to Mention Poets William Carlos Williams and Ron Padgett!)

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If you have already seen this gentle, luminous, poetry-filled fillm, then you know. This riveting “Week in the Life” of two young married people, working class artists living in Paterson, New Jersey, is a small miracle. Or maybe not so small. The main character is a bus driver who writes poems inspired by the people, places, and things around him–anything he notices and responds to in his daily round might spark a poem that he writes into a notebook he carries everywhere. His wife overflows with artistic impulses and dreams–to make astonishing cupcakes, to paint, to learn to play the guitar and become a country western star. Their English bulldog, Marvin, plays a quiet but key role, and is a sly scene stealer.

The Great Falls of the Passaic River in Paterson, New Jersey

The backdrops for this astonishing film, which blends poetry into the action at each turn seemlessly and believably, is the working class city of Paterson and the eponymous five-volume epic poem, Paterson, written by a dean of American modernist poetry, William Carlos Williams. Williams grew up in Rutherford, a small town near Paterson, and returned to it after his schooling to live there and practice medicine while writing poetry and raising a family.

If you haven’t seen the film and would like an intelligent blow-by-blow, this review by “Film Guy Stash” does a brilliant job.

If you do take the plunge and watch the film, you might want to learn more about the poems featured in the film. Each poem is treated almost like a character, with a form on screen in typeface and a voice, too, usually the main character, also named Paterson, reads them. One of the poems, attributed to a young girl, was written by the film’s director, Jim Jarmusch. Another is a frequently anthologized and justly famous short lyric, “This Is Just To Say,” written by William Carlos Williams. The remaining poems (most commissioned for the film) were written by contemporary poet, Ron Padgett, whose strong and sinuglar voice holds echoes of Williams’ cadences and images draw from daily life.

William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

William Carlos Williams

Paterson by Williams is an epic amalgamation of the poet and the city. Memorable quotes include “No ideas but in things”; “The City is a man”; “The Falls are sprinkled partridges, outspread, spotted with white specks.” (In the spirit of full disclosure, I confess that, while I am drawn to Williams’ short lyrics I have never been able to go beyond Book I of his Paterson. If you have read this epic in its entirety, hat’s off to you!”

Ron Padgett (1942-present) (legacy of French symbolish and Dadaist writing)

Ron Padgett

Years ago, another Northfield poet, D.E. Green, referred me to the work of Ron Padgett, and two of his many titles have a permanent place on my bookshelf:

When I think about the rich cinematic experience of this quiet movie, it is the themes I see that move me most: “Bloom where you are planted. Be brave enough to risk doing the work, and share it with the world. Look anywhere, and you will find love and beauty and art looking right back.

LESLIE

Bridge, Winona Minnesota

April 21, 2022 Spotlight on THE TEACHERS AND WRITERS HANDBOOK OF POETIC FORMS Edited by Ron Padgett and Context for My Poem, “Letter to Our Furnace”

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This reference book, edited by Tulas-born New Yorker Ron Padgett, is arranged alphabetically by topic and is unfailingly clear and concise. Sometimes I find it holds just the right level of detail and example to remind me of options and clarify formal considerations. I was very glad to have it this morning.

Context for My Poem, “Letter to Our Furnace”:

Waking up to a warm house this morning was a delightful thing to experience after the opposite yesterday. That, and dipping into and out of Ron Padgett’s handbook today, inspired today’s poem, ripped from domestic headlines, if you will. I am delighted that the form of this poem is a epistle rather than an epitaph!

Until tomorrow, LESLIE

April 14, 2022: Spotlight on Poet Ron Padgett and His Collection, HOW TO BE PERFECT; Background on My Poem, “Sunshine”

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Ron Padgett‘s book of poems, How to Be Perfect, (Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, 2008) has a permanent place on my shelf. I am far from perfect, and so I do not have any of his other celebrated works, though I am curious about them, especially his collaboration with artist Jason Novak, published by Coffee House Press in 2016, called How to Be Perfect: An Illustrated Guide, and Oklahoma Tough: My Father, King of the Tulsa Bootleggers (University of Oklahoma, 2003).

The pleasures of How to Be Perfect, as ironic a title as Johnathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” are many. Consider the titles of such short works as “Very Post-Impressionism” and “Charlie Chan Wins Again” and “Whiz Bang” and “Rinso.” If you are like me, you immediately want to turn from the table of contents and dive into the poem itself. Many of the longer works, including “The Absolutely Huge and Incredible Injustice in the World” are witty and arresting and deadly serious protests all at once, works that question the ability of humans to wake up and save themselves and the planet. Yet Padgett never gives in to ease despair, and the verbose advice dropping of Polonius. Indeed, the title poem, a litany of short bits of advice strung across several pages, is laugh-out-loud funny in many places and filled with condensed, luminous wisdom in others. Consider this item:

Don't stay angry about anything for more than a week, but don't
forget what made you angry. Hold your anger out at end's length
and look at it, as if it were a glass ball. Then add it to your glass
ball collection.

If you are looking for something thoughtful, polished, angry at human stupidity but still hopeful and humane, consider reading these poems.

Background on My Poem “Sunshine”:

Today’s poem is about grim news, raw grey weather, and glimmers of hope, and was inspired by these solar arrays outside of Northfield.

Happy Reading! Happy Writing! LESLIE