You Never Know: Poems

by Ron Padgett

You never know what to expect from Ron Padgett, a poet full of delightful surprises and discoveries. This witty new collection glides from comic to elegiac to lyrical, in celebrations of fairy tales,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1566891280
• ISBN13: 9781566891288
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: Coffee House Press
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 7.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

delicate and witty poetry by Ron Padgett

The book contains delicate and witty poems. It was also a pleasant surprise to receive my order earlier than expected.

How can ever Padgett book be his best?!

Since the 1960s, Ron Padgett has been writing some of the best, and funniest, and most challenging poetry in the English language. My favourite of his books have been The Tulsa Kid and Toujours L'Amour, but I've loved everything he's written (even the small-press oddity Poems I Guess I Wrote). His direct language, his enthusiasm for goofiness, his smart playfulness -- all this stuff moves me and inspires me. But with You Never Know, Padgett moves beyond the 10th rung of a 10-rung ladder. He's still nuts, and often hilarious, but this whole mortality thing has got him doing stuff so perfect, so condensed, so magical... geez.You know, people generally hate poetry. But shove a book like this in their shaking paws and they might have second thoughts.It's a lovely looking book, too, but it would've looked better mimeographed and stapled down the side with a line drawing by Joe Brainard on the cover.Yeah! Resoundingly.

How can every book be Padgett's best?

Since the 1960s, Ron Padgett has been writing some of the best, and funniest, and most challenging poetry in the English language. My favourite of his books have been The Tulsa Kid and Toujours L'Amour, but I've loved everything he's written (even the small-press oddity Poems I Guess I Wrote). His direct language, his enthusiasm for goofiness, his smart playfulness -- all this stuff moves me and inspires me.But with You Never Know, Padgett moves beyond the 10th rung of a 10-rung ladder. He's still nuts, and often hilarious, but this whole mortality thing has got him doing stuff so perfect, so condensed, so magical... geez.You know, people generally hate poetry. But shove a book like this in their shaking paws and they might have second thoughts.It's a lovely looking book, too, but it would've looked better mimeographed and stapled down the side with a line drawing by Joe Brainard on the cover.Yeah! Resoundingly.

Hallmarked with a very special wit

The poetry of Ron Padgett is hallmarked with a very special wit and an artfully conversational American approach. You Never Know offers a complete spectrum of his style, which has a penchant for surprise and discovery, all in service to acknowledging the simple magic of everyday life. Poet As Immortal Bird: A second ago my heart thump went/and I thought, "This would be a bad time/to have a heart attack and die, in the/middle of a poem," then took comfort/in the idea that no one I have ever heard/of has ever died in the middle of writing/a poem, just as birds never die in mid-flight./I think.