The Life Of Ted Berrigan
Ted Berrigan was born on November 15th 1934 in Province, Rhode Island and he was an American poet. He has remained in the history of the American literature through his poems and especially thanks to his sonnets. The life of Ted Berrigan was as normal as it was for any other young man of his age in those days. He went to school and after high school he spent a year at the Province College but which he did not graduate. Instead he joined the US Army in 1954 which meant that he got to serve during the Korean War. He served in the army for about 3 years and afterwards he finished his college degree in Oklahoma, at the University of Tulsa. There he got a degree in English, a Bachelor’s degree, in 1959. He did not get an MA degree because he fell short of the requirements three years later. Later on, he married Sandy Berrigan and had two children, David and Kate Berrigan. This marriage did not work out and he got remarried to the poet Alice Notley. Together they became active in the poetry scene in Chicago. After some years the married couple moved to New York City where the biography of Ted Berrigan was continued by editing magazines and books.
Ted Berrigan is recognized as an important poet for the American literature and specifically in the second generation of New York School of Poets. He was peer to Jim Carroll and Ron Padgett, among others and collaborated with other well known poets on some of his poems such as Bean Spasms. The poet died in 1983 after a long fight against a life threatening condition called cirrhosis of the liver.
In 2005 all his poetry, published and unpublished, was published under the editorship of Alice Notley, in one single volume. The poet’s children from the second marriage had also contributed to this last publication of his work.