Joe Brainard’s Art

Yasmine Shamma is Professor of Literature at the University of Hull. She is the author of Spatial Poetics: Second Generation New York School Poetry (2018), editor of Joe Brainard's Art (2019) and lead editor of Migration Culture and Identity (2023). Alongside Rona Cran, she is co-founder of the Network for New York School Studies.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction: Joe Brainard’s Collage Aesthetic Yasmine ShammaPart 1: Reflections and RecollectionsJoe, 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 VisualsJoe Brainard: The Madonna of the Future - Nathan KernanBoom: 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 CranCodes and Wounds: Exposure and Inviolability in the Work of Joe Brainard and Frank Bidart - Anna SmaillThe Friendly Way: Crafting Community in Joe Brainard’s Poetry - Brian GlaveyJoe Brainard’s Conversations: On Dialogue, In Dialogue - Andrew Epstein Andy FitchPart 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

Shamma has done a fine job of gathering commentary from Brainard’s circle and beyond, bringing this "anti-heroic, humble and lyric" writer and artist into critical focus. These essays and tributes help us to fully appreciate the richness and complexity of both the man and his work.