Continuing our survey of Bernadette Mayer’s books, beginning with two retrospective titles from Station Hill. Eating the Colors of a Lineup of Words – The Early Books of Bernadette Mayer, “a sprawling collection of Mayer’s early works from the 1960s and 70s, including selections from seven out-of-print texts, and one previously unpublished book”
and, finally and long-awaited, The Studying Hunger Journals
and, following the 1992 publication of A Bernadette Mayer Reader – Bernadette at New Directions:
Proper Name & Other Stories (1996), Midwinter Day (1999 – reprint of 1982 edition), Scarlet Tanager (2005), Poetry State Forest, (2008), The Helens of Troy, (2013), and Works and Days (2017)
The Formal Field of Kissing, Translations, Imitations and Epigrams, (the translations from Catullus were made with Don Yorty) were published by Catchword Papers in 1990. A second edition (with an introduction by Dorothea Lasky) was published by Monk Books in 2010. Both editions have sold out.
The Desires of Mothers to Please Others in Letters was first published by Jonathan Gams and Michael Gizzi at Hard Press in 1994, and recently re-published (with an introduction by Laynie Brown) by Nightboat Books in conjunction with SplitLevel Texts
Also, in the ’90’s, from Lewis Warsh‘s United Artists Books, Another Smashed Pinecone,
and from the same year, (1998), from Steve Clay’s Granary Books‘ Two Haloed Mourners
(Back in 1978, Lewis and Anne Waldman had maintained their Angel Hair imprint, publishing (with a captivating cover by Joe Brainard) – The Golden Book of Words)
Back into the 21st Century, another out-of-print title, (from Zasterle Press out of the Canary Islands) – Indigo Bunting
and Dave Brinks and Megan Burns (out of New Orleans’ Trembling Pillow Press, Ethics of Sleep
Then, of course there’s her published collaborative work – our favorite – Letters and Interviews 1977–1985 with Bill Berkson – What’s Your Idea of a Good Time?
and the legendary collaboration with Anne Waldman – The Basketball Article
and The Cave (with Clark Coolidge)
The 3.15 Experiment ( with Lee Ann Brown, Danika Dinsmore and Jen Hofer)
The Complete Works of Apis Mellifera (with Laynie Brown)
More recently, don’t miss out on At Maureen’s (from 1981) with Greg Masters).
and from Station Hill ( dating from 1976) Piece of Cake (with ex-partner, Lewis Warsh)
Siglio Press in 2020 presented a brand new publication of Mayer’s 1971 project Memory, that “brings together the full sequence of images and text for the first time in book form, making space for a work that has been legendary but mostly invisible.”
More on that project – here and here