Joe Brainard's Art

Examines the 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 place. Key Features - Features series of established and new voices in contemporary American poetry - Selected essays all focus on writing but transgress disciplinary lines to also incorporate consideration of Brainard's visual practice at the same time - Suggests Brainard's work informingly lined, bound , and shaped the poetics of American avant-garde - Shifts critical attention to Brainard's writing (while also attending to his well known comics and collages) - Offers further analysis of Brainard's art and work as uniquely queer in aesthetic practice

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.

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