Today in an email to a friend I confused Richard Friedman of Chicago with Ben Weissman of Los Angeles -- the former was generalissimo of the poetry scene in the Windy City in the 1970s, the latter a man of similar exalted rank on the West Coast. Early stage dementia for me? Time will tell. But I'm certain of one thing: it was at a party at Richard Friedman's house that I had my only conversation with Ted Berrigan.
I believe this was in 1976 or 77. Although I had met Ted once or twice I had never really spoken with him. That night he told me he had just made the decision to have all his teeth pulled out; getting them fixed would have been just too much trouble. I've known a few other people who made that decision. It's usually not a good sign.
Ted began to speak about his life in Tulsa, and how he had once worked as a tutor for a young girl. In a very chaste way he described how he had fallen in love with this girl, who had been the inspiration for the book of sonnets he had written -- and in fact for everything he had written since then. There was no suggestion of any physical relationship with this girl, or even that she had been aware of his feelings. He just seemed kind of sad about it, and also kind of amazed. Or was it his teeth he was sad about? Loss is loss. I never saw him again.
-- from the archive; first posted April 12, 2008
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