Happy birthday, Ron Padgett

Ron_padgettIn 1968 I didn’t really know you though

Dick Gallup, who sat next to me

in Kenneth Koch’s “Modern Poetry”

class, invited me to a party and

there you were and I went to hear

you read and went through old

copies of Columbia Review to read

your poems (including the one

signed “the sloth sloth”) and why

am I telling you this? Because it’s

your day of the year, and you’re a gem

as well as a Gemini twin, and I

would tip my fedora to you if

I were wearing one as men used

to say when men wore fedoras.

— David Lehman (June 17, 2013)

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Author: The Best American Poetry