Poems I Guess I Wrote

Eighteen poems ranging 1965-1999 that have two things in common: they're written by Ron Padgett but he's not completely sure. No, he did write them, but as he explains, "Like the surrealist poet Robert Desnos, who could go into a trance, write a poem, and, on awakening, be baffled by his own scribblings, the author of these poems, looking through old folders and notebooks, has discovered poems that, though undeniably his own, he has little or no recollection of having written. Nevertheless the author is mysteriously attracted to these forgotten trysts with the Muse and willing to collect them here—perhaps presumptuously—under his own name, with the hope that the reader, with a memory better than the author’s, will not later think of them as Poems I Guess I Read." The book's a wonderful little shadow recapitulation of nearly the entire length of the author's career. With a cover and five drawings by Padgett's frequent collaborator, the marvelous George Schneeman.