Literary Nonfiction. BLOOD WORK collects the best nonfiction prose works of celebrated poet and translator Ron Padgett. The sixteen pieces here range from the whimsical to the elegiac. Padgett considers the joys and problems of words, in translation and in his own writing, he trains his eyes on artists, including Man Ray, R.B. Kitaj, and George Schneeman, and on writers, from the Cubist Poets (who didn't exist) and Pierre Reverdy, to poets who have shared his adventures. His encounters with strangers in foreign countries are as vivid as portraits of friends close to home. From his inability to distinguish between the words for pineapple and grapefruit, to a diary of his thoughts as his father lies dying half a world away, Padgett offers us lessons in things, and in lives.

Author City: New York, NY USA

Ron Padgett is a celebrated translator, memoirist, and "a thoroughly American poet, coming sideways out of Whitman, Williams, and New York Pop with a Tulsa twist" (Peter Gizzi). His poetry has been translated into more than a dozen languages and has appeared in The Best American Poetry, The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry, The Oxford Book of American Poetry, and on Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac. He was also a guest on Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion in 2009. Padgett is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and his most recent books include HOW LONG, HOW TO BE PERFECT, JOE: A MEMOIR OF JOE BRAINARD, and IF I WERE YOU. Born in Oklahoma, he lives in New York City and Calais, Vermont.

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