Tag Archives: I Remember

Rick Moody on Revisiting Joe Brainard’s “I Remember”

Teachers & Writers Magazine Winter Issue, excerpt three
A Kind of Magic: On Reading, Teaching, and Being Inspired by Joe Brainard

This week we are posting an essay by the novelist Rick Moody, the third piece from the magazine's feature on Joe Brainard. Brainard’s book-length poem I Remember has something of a cult following here at T&W. Nearly every one of us has taught an I Remember lesson using Brainard’s work at one time or another. The poem’s spontaneity, playfulness, frankness, generous spirit, and unassuming tone have made fans of readers, writers, and teachers since its publication in the 70s. The publication this year of The Collected Works of Joe Brainard, edited by Ron Padgett (Library of America) prompted us to revisit I Remember in the winter issue ofTeachers & Writers Magazine, where we take a new look at the qualities that have encouraged teaching artists across the country to turn to the work again and again.

Strange, Guileless, Incredibly Moving
by Rick Moody

I came to Joe Brainard relatively late, which is a humbling thing to admit. If you were schooled in the experimental writing of the sixties and seventies, like I was, you believed that experimental writing did certain things, had certain consistent preoccupations. Experimental writing was anti-establishment, it was sexually explicit, it was cynical, it was malevolent, it was concerned with philosophy, it was often comic, and so on. Mostly the writers of this work were white, male, and straight. I read all the canonical writers in the experimental pantheon, and that was a lot (reading all of William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon, for example, can fill a few years). I was a keen student.

And I therefore felt that I had learned all that I had to know about the furthest-out fringes of literary experiment. I already  even  accounted  for  language poetry, and Oulipo, and Stein, all of that stuff. I knew what I knew. Until I went out to dinner one night, ten or twelve years ago, with Paul Auster. We talked about a lot of things we both liked—Beckett, of course, and  Hawthorne, and  then  at  some  point  Paul  said “You’ve never read I Remember? Well, you have to come back to the house, and I’ll show it to you.” So I went back to his house and down into Paul’s library (which is substantial), and he pulled out a copy of I Remember.

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David Andrew Stoler on Revisiting Joe Brainard’s “I Remember”

Teachers & Writers Magazine, Winter Issue, excerpt two
A Kind of Magic: On Reading,Teaching, and Being Inspired by Joe Brainard

Last week we shared an appreciation of Joe Brainard by Matthew Burgess. This week we’re posting an essay on Brainard by T&W artist David Andrew Stoler.

Joe Brainard’s book-length poem I Remember has something of a cult following here at T&W. Nearly every one of us has taught an I Remember lesson using Brainard’s work at one time or another. The poem’s spontaneity, playfulness, frankness, generous spirit, and unassuming tone have made fans of readers, writers, and teachers since its publication in the 70s. The publication this year of The Collected Works of Joe Brainard, edited by Ron Padgett (Library of America) prompted us to revisit I Remember in the winter issue of Teachers & Writers Magazine, where we take a new look at the qualities that have encouraged teaching artists across the country to turn to the work again and again.

 

Like a Key to the Writer’s Mind 
by David Andrew Stoler 

The first few times we saw each other the best we could do was cast wary glances at one another across the busy halls of the college, like people who met at a party long ago. We recognized each other—vaguely—but that was all.

And then one day the elevator door opened, everybody got out, she got on, the door closed. We stood for a moment, staring at our shoes.

“What high school did you go to?” I said. I thought I knew her, but having taught thousands of students over the last decade, I just couldn’t be sure.

“Lincoln,” she said. Somewhere I had never been. I shrugged, and we returned to the intimate, awkward silence of strangers on an elevator.

Then she spoke: “I remember the pretty German girl who stank. You’re the poetry guy. I still have the anthology we made.”

Her name was Jasmine. She had been in the fifth grade when I had taught her at PS 156 in Brownsville, Brooklyn. It had been nearly a decade since, she was now a sophomore in college, and she remembered the very first lesson we had done together: Joe Brainard.

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Matthew Burgess on Revisiting Joe Brainard’s “I Remember”

Teachers & Writers Magazine Winter Issue, excerpt one
A Kind of Magic: On Reading,Teaching,and Being Inspired by Joe Brainard

I Remember has something of a cult following here at T&W. Nearly every one of us has taught an I Remember lesson using Brainard’s work at one time or another. The poem’s spontaneity, playfulness, frankness, generous spirit, and unassuming tone have made fans of readers, writers, and teachers since its publication in the 70s. The publication this year of The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard, edited by Ron Padgett (Library of America) prompted us to revisit I Remember in the winter issue of Teachers & Writers Magazine, where we take a new look at the qualities that have encouraged teaching artists across the country to turn to the work again and again. In the coming weeks we’ll post appreciations of Brainard by three writers, excerpted from the magazine's pages.  We start off with poet and T&W teaching artist Matthew Burgess.

 
“Glories Strung Like Beads”: The Queer Brilliance of I Remember
Matthew Burgess

This isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned Eugene. I remember exactly where he sat, second row back, in the seventh-grade class at PS 187. I remember his laser-beam smirk as I read aloud from Joe Brainard’s book, and before I could send the students into their own lists of “I remembers,” Eugene raised his hand: “Why are we doing this? It seems pointless.” I said something about the importance of specific, sensory detail in our writing, but my reply didn’t erase the look on Eugene’s face. I looked down at the book for examples: “I remember the chocolate Easter bunny problem of where to start… I remember rocks you pick up outside that, once inside, you wonder why.” As much as I loved these lines, maybe Eugene had a point?

In that moment, I was unprepared to justify the lesson. I had led the same I Remember exercise countless times, and it always worked wonders. Students listened to excerpts from Brainard’s book with dreamy attention. They often laughed openly in recognition and amusement. People with difficulty writing found a flow while composing their own lists, and they read their memories aloud in speech rhythms that felt authentic, spontaneous, and poetic. Students listened attentively and respectfully to each other’s words, and the classroom grew perceptibly warmer for the experience. Many of you know what I’m talking about. We call them “I remembers,” and they work.  (more...)