On the Level Everyday: Selected Talks on Poetry and the Art of Living

Ted Berrigan (1934-1983) is among his generation's most admired writers. In many respects, the directions followed in contemporary poetry were set out in the courses and workshops he taught at the Naropa Institute, the University of Michigan, Yale University, the City University of New York, the Stevens Institute of Technology, the University of Essex in England, Northeastern Illinois University, the Iowa Writers Workshop, and elsewhere. On the Level Everyday brings together key examples of his classroom lectures with other pieces, including two important talks delivered at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in New York. On the Level Everyday provides an introduction not only to Berrigan's poetics but also the problems of surviving as a poet in America today.