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This Bagley Wright Lecture is on being influenced (thinking of influence as a site of openness, and pleasure  - not anxiety), and sits in three parts: the first has to do with growing up with Anselm Berrigan's folks as parents and starting to write. The second part gets into Anselm being influenced by a range of other people and has a passage that is made up mostly of things people said to him across a period of childhood/teen/early 20s years, while also getting inside the one semester he spent working one-on-one with Allen Ginsberg. The last section gets into poems from a his new book, called Don't Forget to Love Me, and how a few of those poems from a section titled Theories of Influence are specifically influenced by other poets and writers. The range of writers includes W.G. Sebald, Ron Padgett, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Alice (mom) Notley, June Jordan, John Yau, Fred Moten, and various others.

The Louisiana French word lagniappe means “a little something extra.” In New Orleans, lagniappe is a gesture of generosity—a small bonus given freely, whether an extra shucked oyster, a long pour, or an unexpected kindness from a neighbor. This spirit of abundance and reciprocity resonates where poetry is not just a genre but a living practice embedded in community, resistance, and cultural exchange. These Lagniappe Readings celebrate this ethos, offering a space where five poets perform their work.