Hymns of St. Bridget & Other Writings [Paperback]

Amy L. Clark (Author), Bill Berkson (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0966943058 | ISBN-13: 978-0966943054 | Publication Date: November 20, 2001

Poetry. Drama. Fiction. This book contains rare unpublished and out of print poems, a play, and an unfinished 'novel', all written in collaboration in the early 1960's. HYMNS comprises the full run of poetry and prose the two poets wrote in collaboration between 1960 and 1964. Two-thirds of these have never before appeared in book form. Berkson's and O'Hara's "hymns," inspired by the crooked steeple of the Church of St. Bridget on New York's Lower East Side, address themes of love, protestation, travel and more. (The final two are songs in praise of the New York School master painters, Willem de Kooning and Philip Guston.) The other writings include further collaborative poems; a lengthy epistolary fiction involving two long-lost brothers, Angelicus and Fidelio Fobb; Marcia, an Unfinished Novel (with Patsy Southgate), a play written on a jetliner over the Atlantic, and dizzying notes on the New York City Ballet and the French 'cubist' poet Pierre Reverdy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Poets Frank O'Hara and Bill Berkson collaborated on several works in the early '60s, collected for the first time in Hymns of St. Bridget & Other Writings. The pieces include a cycle of poems inspired by a church on New York City's Lower East Side ("My heart is corresponding oddly and with odd things and I sometimes wonder if the future holds nothing but the Surgical-Dental Co. and Disney the light is getting dim and a softness is settling over the aluminum appliances and the fire escapes and a fresh green paint over my royal flush heart"), prose poetry created for the 1961 New York City Ballet program and a play about a transatlantic flight.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"A pinnacle of collaborative poetics!" -- The Boston Review, Summer 2003

"Beautiful! A Treasure!" -- Rain Taxi Review of Books, Summer 2002

"Phenomenal! Positively Flabbergasting!" -- Anselm Hollo- Naropa University

"Written with seamless agility and brilliant humor" -- Joanne Kyger- The Bolinas World Tribune

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 86 pages
• Publisher: Owl Press (November 20, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0966943058
• ISBN-13: 978-0966943054
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,934,331 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Hello St. Bridget . . . How's tricks?", March 28, 2002

By 

Brendan Lorber (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hymns of St. Bridget & Other Writings (Paperback)

Alternately dashing & coy, these rapturous hymns ride a virgin-mary-go-round of respect & adulation for the skewed, tilted & impossible to love. With their conversational odes to the crooked spires of literary conspirators & the neighborhoods they rise from, Berkson & O'Hara erect an irresistible testament to friendship & the cracked open world of charming collaboration. The precarious steeple of St. Bridget's church in New York City might be gone, but what this pair of poet raconteurs have done will keep its pointed spirit forever lodged in anyone who eavesdrops on this reflectively genuflecting collection.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars O'Hara at his best, February 15, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Hymns of St. Bridget & Other Writings (Paperback)

What other pair from the New York School would dare write poems about a crooked steeple? These poems (The Hymns) are sublime, silly, and brilliant, and are the perfect appetizer to the Other Writings, especially the fictional correspondace between Angelicus and Fidelio Fobb which had me rolling for hours. Even the "Unfinished Novel" was interestingly baffling albeit fleeting. All and all an incredibly savory mix of collaborations by two of the best poets in America!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars spirit of new york a la collaboration, March 22, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Hymns of St. Bridget & Other Writings (Paperback)

What a pleasure it is to read the friendship between the lines of two such aesthetically rich poets as it was preserved onto paper 30 years ago. At first I read this book trying to figure out who wrote what. Oh, that sounds like a Berkson line, or that sounds like O'hara. But the pieces in this book really do, for the most part, lend themselves to being read as if written by a singular author; true of the best of collaborations. The work thus feels whole, controlled, and, simulataneously, spontaneous and wild. Lots of gratitude to Owl Press for saving this miraculous work from dust bin of history.