{"product_id":"how-to-be-perfect-9781566892032","title":"How to Be Perfect","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Ron Padgett makes the most quiet and sensible of feelings a provocatively persistent wonder.\"--Robert Creeley\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRon Padgett has reenergized modern poetry with exuberant and tender love poems, with exceptionally lucid and touching elegies, and with imaginative and action-packed homages to American culture and visual art. He has paid tribute to Woody Woodpecker and the West, to friends and collaborators, to language and cowslips, to beautiful women and chocolate milk, to paintings and small-time criminals. His poems have always imparted a contagious sense of joy.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn these new poems, Padgett hasn't forsaken his beloved Woody Woodpecker, but he has decided to heed the canary and sound the alarm. Here, he asks, \"What makes us so mean?\" And he really wants to know. Even as these poems cajole and question, as they call attention to what has been lost and what we still stand to lose, they continue to champion what makes sense and what has always been worth saving. \"Humanity,\" Padgett generously (and gently) reminds us, still \"has to take it one step at a time.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003eRon Padgett\u003c\/b\u003e is a celebrated translator, memoirist, teacher, and, as Peter Gizzi says, \"a thoroughly American poet, coming sideways out of Whitman, Williams, and New York Pop with a Tulsa twist.\" His poetry has been translated into more than a dozen languages and has appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe Best American Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePoetry 180\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Oxford Book of American Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e, and on Garrison Keillor's \u003ci\u003eThe Writer's Almanac\u003c\/i\u003e. Visit his website at www.ronpadgett.com.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Coffee House Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 09\/01\/2007\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781566892032\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 114\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.45lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.89h x 6.15w x 0.40d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations: \u003c\/strong\u003e\u003ci\u003eLibrary Journal\u003c\/i\u003e 09\/15\/2007 pg. 64\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e 11\/16\/2007 pg. 81\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew Yorker (The)\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/10\/2008 pg. 83\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e 12\/18\/2008 pg. 83\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Ron Padgett","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":38021057446069,"sku":"9781566892032","price":13.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0473\/0804\/6492\/products\/img_0dee1d73-c088-4643-92af-76eb9de061b9.jpg?v=1609177448","url":"https:\/\/pastforward.org\/products\/how-to-be-perfect-9781566892032","provider":"Past Forward","version":"1.0","type":"link"}