Dear Sandy, Hello

Letters illuminating a legendary literary love affair and the young artists who made 1960s New York the world’s cultural capital.

Ted and Sandy Berrigan’s 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 novel—full 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 Berrigan’s developing voice.

Publication date: October 12, 2010

Format: Trade Paper

Dimensions: 6 x 9

Page count: 368 pages

ISBN: 9781566892490

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.

“This volume vividly preserves young love through Ted’s letters to Sandy while she was institutionalized—packed with rage, frustration, and thoughts about writing. . . . Even those unfamiliar with Ted’s poetry will be fascinated by the drama inherent in this collection.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"For anybody with a taste for Ted, this book is another sweet addition.”

—Bookforum

“In addition to their emotional lovelorn narrative, these letters are valuable because they offer the reader a glimpse inside a poet’s working furnace, just as he’s approaching the peak of his powers. Co-edited by Ron Padgett, who continues to dedicate his substantial literary skills to bringing his best friends back to life, these letters generously rekindle Berrigan’s spirit more than a quarter century after his death.” 

—Rain Taxi

“A sad, and wonderful book about a pair of young lovers who completed each other—for a while.”

—Poetry Foundation

“A lot of beautiful writing about love and longing and much else. There’s also a great visual section, reprinting some original scrapbook assemblages. All in all a lovely package, rich in language, idea and emotional content.”

—Arthur Magazine