Love Joe, the much-anticipated Selected Letters of Joe Brainard edited by Daniel Kane, is just out from Columbia University Press (actually November 26 is its offcial pub. date).
A celebratory gathering takes place tonight (Wednesday) at the St Marks Poetry Project in New York (see here)
The evening will be broadcast live on You Tube – 8.00 pm. EST –
Tonight’s readers will include Ron Padgett, Anne Waldman, Ann Lauterbach, Vincent Katz, Brad Gooch, ,Keith McDermott, Michael Lally, & others.
from a letter Joe Brainard to Kenward Elmslie, Oct 20, 1974:
“Speaking of shocking – would you believe that I “went to bed” with Allen Ginsberg the other night. He’s been after me for years, and I was feeling really weird (in a so what have I got to lose sort of mood) (etc). However I find him sexy not one bit, and so I couldn’t even get it up. However we did a bit of Tibetan meditation (z-z-z) the position of which is where (from I (from which – Me no speak English today ! What I mean is that I feel that that is where my sore neck comes from, except that I know better.”
Ha!
Here’s Edmund White on Joe Brainard
and more memories – Michael Brownstein, Bill Berkson, Duncan Hannah, Nathan Kernan, Frank Bidart, Robert Pinsky, William Corbett and Arden Corbett
Here’s the Tribute to Joe that took place at the New School, back in 2012, on the occasion of the publication of The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard
and the absolutely essential and highly-informative Joe Brainard – The Art of the Personal from poet,critic, John Yau, that came out in 2022
That’s Kenward Elmslie’s dog, Whippoorwill, on the cover, by the way
Love Joe – We love you, Joe! – The book is, (of course), “terrific”