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The first book to examine multiple angles of the avant-garde poetry and art of Joe Brainard
Joe Brainard's work occupies the literal margins of New York school poetry, while also figuratively influencing its aesthetic margins, shaping the school from both within and without. Brainard was not only an important illustrator and friend to many New York school poets, he was also a respected collage artist, miniature artist, cartoonist, avid letter writer and serious poet. As the canon of avant-garde American poetry warmly embraces his poetry alongside his art, the field of literary criticism is freshly responding with enthusiasm to Brainard's literary contribution with sophisticated scholarship and first-hand accounts which attend to both his textual and visual nuances. This collection offers the first place for the importance of Brainard's poetry, collaborations and art to be recognised for their contribution and influence, all in one volume.
Yasmine Shamma is Lecturer in Literatures in English at the University of Reading.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Joe Brainard's Collage Aesthetic Yasmine Shamma
Part 1: Reflections and Recollections
Joe, A Funny Nickname - Alice Notley
Tenderness and Gristle - Anne Waldman
Smoking Joe - John Brainard
Artist Statement - John Ashbery
Vulnerability in Joe Brainard's Work - Edmund Berrigan
Part 2: Joe Brainard's Visions and Visuals
Joe Brainard: The Madonna of the Future - Nathan Kernan
Boom: Joe Brainard 1961 - 1963 - Ron Padgett
Joe Brainard's Still-Life Poetics - Jess Cotton
Part 3: Brainard and Others
"Men with Pair of Scissors": Joe Brainard and John Ashbery's Eclecticism - Rona Cran
Codes and Wounds: Exposure and Inviolability in the Work of Joe Brainard and Frank Bidart - Anna Smaill
The Friendly Way: Crafting Community in Joe Brainard's Poetry - Brian Glavey
Joe Brainard's Conversations: On Dialogue, In Dialogue - Andrew Epstein Andy Fitch
Part 4: Brainard's Books
"Fuck work": The Reciprocity of Labor and Pleasure in Joe Brainard's Writing - Nick Sturm
Everyday Queers: Joe Brainard, Femininity, and the Queer Poetics of the Normal - Kimberly Lamm
'Saying Good-Bye': Joe Brainard's Bolinas Journal and Memoir as Disappearance - Timothy Keane
Afterword Marjorie Perloff
About the author
Yasmine Shamma is a specialist in contemporary American and world poetry. She earned her DPhil from the University of Oxford, her MA from Georgetown University, and her BA from the American University of Beirut. She has worked as editor, writer, teacher, and scholar throughout the US, UK and Middle East. Her long-standing interest in the forms and figures of New York School poetry informs this collection. Her book,
Spatial Poetics: Second Generation New York School Poetry is in press with Oxford University Press and due to be published in 2018.
Summary
This collection offers the first place for the importance of Brainard's poetry, collaborations and art to be recognised for their contribution and influence, all in one place.
