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Title: How can ever Padgett book be his best?!
Review: 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.
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