Dear Sandy, Hello: Letters from Ted to Sandy Berrigan

(Paperback)

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Description

Ted and Sandy Berrigans honeymoon ended when her father, a well-connected doctor, forced Sandy into a mental hospital, had Ted run out of town by the sheriff, and hired private detectives to investigate his friends. These intimate, irresistible letters, written over the course of their three-month separation, read like a passionate, epistolary novelfull of longing, intrigue, and gossip. They also offer serious advice for developing readers and writers, bring the thriving cultural scene in mid-twentieth-century New York to life, and serve as a day-by-day chronicle of Ted Berrigans developing voice.

In addition to the letters, this collection contains never-before-published reproductions from A Book of Poetry for Sandy,featuring Berrigans cutouts, drawings, photographs of fellow poets and artists, and excerpts from poems that eventually became The Sonnets.

Reviews

This volume vividly preserves young love through Teds letters to Sandy while she was institutionalizedpacked with rage, frustration, and thoughts about writing . . . `Its time for less warm tears and more cold fury, writes Ted, transporting the reader to a time when a passionate and impulsive young woman could be committed for behavior contrary to social norms. Even those unfamiliar with Teds poetry will be fascinated by the drama inherent in this collection.Publishers Weekly(starred review)
This volume vividly preserves young love through Teds letters to Sandy while she was institutionalizedpacked with rage, frustration, and thoughts about writing . . . Its time for less warm tears and more cold fury, writes Ted, transporting the reader to a time when a passionate and impulsive young woman could be committed for behavior contrary to social norms. Even those unfamiliar with Teds poetry will be fascinated by the drama inherent in this collection.Publishers Weekly(starred review)

Author Bio

Ted Berrigan (1934-1983), a central figure in the second generation of New York School poets, was the author of more than twenty books including The Sonnets, So Going Around Cities, and A Certain Slant of Sunlight. The editor and publisher of C Magazine, he also wrote art criticism and became an influential mentor to an entire generation of writers.