by Ron Padgett
People of the World: Relax!: C Comics No. 2 (New York: Boke Press, [1965]). 1965?
Ron Padgett: SW 40. November 1966?
January 26th, 1967: SW 38. January 1967
Pat: SW 24. No later than June 1967
August 29th, 1967: SW 34–35. August 1967
Jamaica 1968: SW 41–45. March 1968
What Is Money?: SW 64–66. No later than Winter 1968–69
Little-Known Facts about People: The World 13 (November 1968): not paginated. November 1968?
Diary 1969: SW 49–59. March–May 1969. (Entry for Sunday, March 29th corrected to Sunday, March 20th and moved in chronological sequence; entry for Saturday, May 18th corrected to Saturday, May 17th)
*Diary 1969 (Continued): Kenward Elmslie Papers (MSS 521, box 88, folder 27), Mandeville Special Collections Library, UCSD Libraries, University of California, San Diego; selected entries. May–August 1969
Sex: SW 71. No later than October 1969
A Special Diary: The World 17 (November–December 1969): not paginated. October 1969
Some Drawings of Some Notes to Myself (New York: Siamese Banana, 1971). October 1969?
Death: SW1 102–03. 1969–70?
Autobiography: SW 121.1969–70?
Some Train Notes: SW1 104–06. March or April 1970?
Diary 1970–71: SW1 107–115. November 1970-March 1971. Tuesday, February 18th, corrected to Thursday
December 22, 1970: SW 98–99. December 1970
1970: SW 91. 1970
Queer Bars: SW 95. No later than February 1971
Art: SW 94. No later than February 1971
Short Story: SW 90. No later than February 1971
Life [“When I stop and think”]: SW 101. No later than February 1971
Rim of the Desert: SW 93. No later than February 1971
How to Be Alone Again: SW 96–97 No later than February 1971
Bolinas Journal (Bolinas, CA: Big Sky Books, 1971). May–July 1971
*Wednesday, July 7th, 1971 (A Greyhound Bus Trip): manuscript, Estate. July 1971
Selections from “Vermont Journal: 1971”: NW 14–17. Summer 1971
Fear: NW 19. 1971?
White Spots: NW 21. 1971?
My Favorite Quotations: SW 120. 1971?
Selections from “Self-Portrait: 1971”: NW 9–13. 1971
from N.Y.C. Journals: 1971–1972: NW 42–62. December 1971–June 1972
*Friday, June 16th, 1972: manuscript, Estate. June 1972
*Tuesday, July 11th, 1972: manuscript, Estate. July 1972
What I Did This Summer: NW 67. September 1972?
Washington D.C. Journal 1972: Z 1 (1973): 82–88. October 1972
The Gay Way: NW 20. Winter 1972?
Matches: manuscript, Estate. 1972?
Self-Portrait (As a Writer) If I Was Old and Fat and Wore Hats: manuscript, Estate. 1972?
Dirty Prose: Big Sky 4 (1972). 1972?
Fantastic Dream I Had Last Night!: manuscript, Estate. 1972?
If: manuscript, Estate. 1972?
The Friendly Way (New York: Siamese Banana, 1972). 1972?
The Friendly Way (Continued): Paris Review 16.62 (Summer 1975) 139–42. 1975?
If I Was God: NW 29. 1972?
Ponder This: NW 31. 1972?
Grandmother: NW 32. 1972?
Night: NW 35. 1972?
Neck: NW 41. 1972?
30 One-Liners: NW 63–66. 1972?
The Cigarette Book (New York: Siamese Banana, 1972). 1972. “Smoke More,” reproduced in facsimile, was originally published in Selected Writings and written c. 1963
Poem [“Sometimes”]: NW 33. 1972?
No Story: NW 36. 1972?
Journals: The World 28 (May 1973): not paginated. February–April 1973
Before I Die: Oink! [Chicago] 6 (May 1973): 13. May 1973?
Right Now: Stooge (Oconomowoc Lake, WI) 9 (1973): not paginated. Summer 1973
Life [“The life of a human being is”]: Telephone 11 (1975): [5–6]. October 1973?
Stoned Again: Telephone 11 (1975): [10]. October 1973?
A Depressing Thought: Some 3 (Winter 1973): 54. Winter 1973?
Thirty: Some 3 (Winter 1973): 54. Winter 1973?
Ten Imaginary Still Lifes: NTWHA 15–24. 1973–78?
from 29 Mini-Essays: 29 Mini-Essays (Calais, VT: Z Press, 1978). 1973–78?
The Outer Banks: NTWHA 34–36. 1978?
Towards a Better Life (Eleven Exercises): NTWHA 7–12. 1978?
Twenty-three Mini-Essays: NTWHA 25–33. 1978?
Religion: typescript, Estate. 1978?
*Out in the Hamptons: manuscript, Estate. 1978?
Nothing to Write Home About: NTWHA 37–55. 1979
*A State of the Flowers Report: manuscript, collection of Kenward Elmslie. November 1979
Jimmy Schuyler: A Portrait: Ron Padgett, Joe: A Memoir of Joe Brainard (Minneapolis: Coffee House Press, 2004), page 292; originally included in a letter to Bill Berkson. August 1991
January 13th: manuscript, Estate. January 1978
This volume concludes with two Brainard interviews. The first, conducted by Tim Dlugos in 1977, was originally published in Little Caesar, volume 10, in 1980; the second, with Anne Waldman in 1978, in Rocky Ledge, number 3, in November–December 1979.
In addition to the works collected in this volume, other writings by Joe Brainard can be found in the following periodicals: Adventures in Poetry no. 9 (Spring 1972); Big Sky no. 4 (1972); C nos. 2 (1963), 8 (1964), and 9 (Summer 1964); Contact no. 5 (February 1, 1973); Gegensche in Quarterly no. 1112 (1975); Harris Review (Poultry Season Issue, 1971); Juilliard no. 9 (Pinecone Supplement, Winter 1968–69); Lines no. 2 (December 1964), 3 (February 1965), and 4 (March 1965); Little Caesar no. 4 (November 1977); Milk Quarterly nos. 2 (August 1972) and 11/12 (1978); Nice no. 1 (1966); Oink! nos. 3 (1972) and 6 (1973); Paris Review no. 53 (1972); Poet’s Home Companion (1969); Some no. 3 (1973); Telephone no. 11 (1975); Tzarad no. 2 (October 1966); The World no. 23 (Summer 1971); and Z no. 1 (1973). This list is not exhaustive, as a definitive Brainard bibliography remains to be compiled.
Glossary of Names
Donald Allen (1912–2004). Editor at Grove Press and publisher of Grey Fox Press, responsible for the influential anthology The New American Poetry 1945–1960 (1960) and for Frank O’Hara’s Collected Poems (1971).
Sandy Alper (b. 1942). First wife of poet Ted Berrigan and friend of JB.
John Ashbery (b. 1927). Poet and friend of JB, with whom Joe collaborated on several projects, including The Vermont Notebook (1975).
Gordon Baldwin (b. 1939). American artist living in Bolinas, California, when JB met him.
Bob Bartholic (1925–2009). Tulsa artist who influenced the young JB and gave him two exhibitions at his gallery in Tulsa.
Ed Baynard (b. 1940). New York City artist and friend of JB.
Dave Bearden (1940–2008). Intense, “outsider” poet whom the young JB met in Tulsa around 1959. Friend of Ted Berrigan and Lauren Owen.
Bill Berkson (b. 1939). Poet and longtime friend of JB whom Joe met in New York City in the early 1960s and with whom he collaborated on many book and magazine projects. Berkson published JB’s Bolinas Journal (1971).
Ted Berrigan (1934–1983). Poet and friend of JB, whom Joe met around 1959 in Tulsa. Perhaps the single strongest personal influence on Joe as an artist and writer. The two were frequent collaborators, especially in the early 1960s in New York City. A number of Berrigan’s poems are dedicated to or about JB.
Paul Blackburn (1926–1971). Poet JB met in New York City around 1963 at the Le Métro Café poetry reading series, which Blackburn directed.
Jack Boyce (1932–1972). Artist and husband of Joanne Kyger. JB met him in Bolinas.
Zoe Brown. Graphic designer and artist JB met in Bolinas.
Michael Brownstein (b. 1943). Poet, fiction writer, and friend of JB, with whom Joe collaborated on comic strips. Brownstein spent time with Anne Waldman, Kenward Elmslie, and JB at Elmslie’s home i
n Vermont.
Jack Brusca (1939–1993). New York artist.
Rudy Burckhardt (1914–1999). Underground filmmaker, photographer, artist, writer, and friend of JB. Joe wrote the script for Burckhardt’s film, Money (1968). Burckhardt emigrated from Switzerland in 1935 and spent most of his life in New York City and rural Maine. A lifelong friend of Edwin Denby.
Yvonne (Jacquette) Burckhardt (b. 1934). Artist, wife of Rudy Burckhardt, and friend of JB.
Susan Burke. Bill Berkson’s girlfriend in New York City and Bolinas.
Angelica Clark. Wife of Tom Clark, who met Joe in NY in the mid-1960s and later knew him in Bolinas.
Juliet Clark. Young daughter of Tom and Angelica Clark.
Tom Clark (b. 1941). Poet and friend of JB, whom Joe met in New York City around 1966 after a transatlantic correspondence. Clark was an early publisher of JB’s writings and art. Joe designed the covers of Clark’s first two major books, Stones (1968) and Air (1970).
Jess (Collins, 1923–2004). Artist based in San Francisco. Companion of Robert Duncan.
Chris (Cox?, 1949–1990). In JB’s “NYC Journals. 1971–1972,” “Chris” is probably Chris Cox, photographer and friend of Edmund White.
Bobbie Creeley (Bobbie Louise Hawkins, b. 1930). Poet, fiction writer, and friend of JB, who got to know her in Bolinas, and continued to see her in New York City.
Robert Creeley (1926–2005). Poet and friend of JB, with whom Joe collaborated on The Class of ’47 (1973). JB got to know him in Bolinas.
Edwin Denby (1903–1983). Poet, dance writer, and friend of JB. Denby’s somewhat ascetic lifestyle and lucid conversation set an example for Joe. Denby’s friends over the years had included Willem de Kooning, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, George Balanchine, Frank O’Hara, and Rudy Burckhardt.
Donna Dennis (b. 1942). Artist and friend of JB who for a time was the girlfriend of Ted Berrigan. JB and Dennis met in New York City in the 1960s.
Diane di Prima (b. 1934). Poet, small press editor, and off-off Broadway theater producer whom JB met in the early 1960s.
Tim Dlugos (1950–1990). Poet (A Fast Life: The Collected Poems of Tim Dlugos, 2011) and friend of JB.
John Doss. Physician and husband of Margot Doss, whom JB met in Bolinas.
Margot Doss (1920–2003). San Francisco Chronicle journalist and hostess of poetry salons in the 1960s and ’70s, whom JB met in Bolinas.
Donald Droll (1927–1985). Art dealer, part of the Frank O’Hara social circle, and acquaintance of JB.
Robert Duncan (1919–1988). Poet and acquaintance of JB. Companion of Jess Collins.
Ella. In JB’s “A True Story,” a fictional character whose name was probably derived from Ella Rengers, who had befriended Joe when he was a student at the Dayton Art Institute briefly in late 1960. Rengers appears in The Friendly Way as “E. R.”
Bill Elliott (1944–1985). Composer whom JB met through Kenward Elmslie.
Kenward Elmslie (b. 1929). Poet and JB’s companion for thirty years. The two spent virtually every summer at Elmslie’s home in rural Vermont from 1965 to 1993, and collaborated on an enormous number of projects. Elmslie’s Z Press published Joe’s writings and art. Probably the single most important person in JB’s adult life.
Donald Evans (1945–1977). Artist and friend of JB.
Larry Fagin (b. 1937). Poet, small press editor, and friend of JB.
Louis Falco (1942–1993). Dancer/choreographer and friend of JB. In 1974, Falco created a dance piece based on JB’s I Remember.
Jane Freilicher (b. 1924). Artist and friend of JB. Freilicher and her husband, Joe Hazan, vacationed in Jamaica with Kenward Elmslie and JB, who admired both her wit and her paintings.
Carol Gallup (b. 1942). Married poet Dick Gallup in 1964. Editor of Poet’s Home Companion magazine. JB met her when she was an undergraduate at Barnard.
Dick Gallup (b. 1941). Poet whom Joe met in Tulsa around 1959. Along with Ron Padgett and JB, Gallup edited the little magazine The White Dove Review while the three were in high school. JB did the cover design of Gallup’s first collection, Hinges (1965).
John Giorno (b. 1936). Poet and friend of JB.
Morris Golde (1920–2001). Congenial arts patron and friend of JB, famed for his parties in his small Greenwich Village apartment, filled with art- and music-world luminaries.
Maxine Groffsky (b. 1936). Editor of Paris Review, literary agent, and friend of JB. Groffsky and Harry Mathews traveled in Italy and Sicily with Kenward Elmslie and JB.
John Gruen (b. 1926). New York art writer, composer, and photographer. Gruen was instrumental in getting JB his first solo exhibition in New York City, at the Alan Gallery, 1965.
Duayne Hatchett (b. 1925). Abstract sculptor whom JB knew in Tulsa around 1959–60 and who was an example of a “real artist” for the young Joe.
Elizabeth Hazan. Young daughter of Joe Hazan and Jane Freilicher.
Lita Hornick (1927–2000). Publisher of Kulchur magazine and Kulchur Press, art collector, and friend of JB. Her collection included a major oil painting by Joe, Nancy. Kulchur published his Selected Writings 1962–1971.
Japanese City. A large, delicate, and complicated assemblage by JB, the largest he ever did, which was shown only once, at the Landau-Alan gallery in late 1965. Later JB cannibalized it for other assemblages.
Alex Katz (b. 1927). Artist and friend of JB. Katz did numerous portraits of JB, who admired his work enormously.
Bill Katz (b. 1942). Interior designer, architect, and friend of JB. Katz designed the installations of the 2001 Joe Brainard retrospective at the Berkeley Art Museum and NY’s P.S. 1.
Anne Kepler (1942–1966). Flutist and high school classmate of JB in Tulsa. Then friends in New York City as well. Perished in a fire in 1966.
Marge (Margie) Kepler. Cousin of Anne Kepler. She sometimes worked as a model for Tulsa artists, including JB. Janice Koch (d. 1981). Wife of Kenneth Koch.
Kenneth Koch (1925–2002). Poet and friend of JB, who collaborated with him. JB designed the cover of Koch’s groundbreaking book, Wishes, Lies and Dreams (1970).
Joanne Kyger (b. 1934). Poet and friend of JB, based in Bolinas and associated with the San Francisco Renaissance and Beat poets. First wife of poet Gary Snyder.
Arlene Ladden (b. 1946). Writer and acquaintance of JB.
Joe LeSueur (1924–2001). Writer, editor, and first lover of JB. Companion of Frank O’Hara. Cousin of actress Joan Crawford.
Lewis MacAdams (b. 1944). Poet and acquaintance of JB. Joe published in MacAdams’s little magazine, Mother, and did a cover design for it.
John Martin (b. 1930). Publisher of Black Sparrow Books, which issued JB’s New Work (1973) and two collaborative books, The Champ (1968) with Kenward Elmslie and The Vermont Notebook (1975) with John Ashbery.
Harry Mathews (b. 1930). Fiction writer, poet, and friend of JB. Mathews and Maxine Groffsky toured Italy and Sicily with JB and Kenward Elmslie. Mathews told his friend Georges Perec about JB’s I Remember, which inspired Perec’s Je me souviens (1978). Marie Chaix, Mathews’ second wife, translated I Remember into French.
J. J. Mitchell. Part of the Frank O’Hara social circle and friend of JB.
Tibor de Nagy Gallery. New York City art gallery where artists admired by JB—Rivers, Freilicher, Porter, among others—showed their work in the 1950s and ’60s, and the gallery that has shown his work since his death.
Lowell Nesbit (1933–1993). Artist.
Alice Notley (b. 1945). Poet, second wife of Ted Berrigan, and friend of JB.
Frank O’Hara (1926–1966). Poet and friend of JB. Joe once described O’Hara as his hero. The two did some collaborations and played a lot of bridge. After O’Hara’s death Joe wrote that he had been O’Hara’s secret lover, a claim doubted by some. In any case, O’Hara was a huge influence on Joe, as he was on many others.
Arthur Okamura (1932–2009). Artist JB met in Bolinas.
Lauren Owen (b. 1941). Friend of Dick Gallup and Ron Padgett, who met him in el
ementary school in Tulsa, and of Dave Bearden and Ted Berrigan, who met him at Tulsa University. JB met Owen around 1959. Owen lived for some years in New York City with his wife, poet Maureen Owen.
Pat Padgett (Pat Mitchell, b. 1937). Close friend of JB from their meeting in Tulsa around 1959 until his death in 1994. She and JB grew up in the same neighborhood. Wife of Ron Padgett.
Ron Padgett (b. 1942). Poet and longtime friend of JB. Padgett and Brainard were in the same first grade class in Tulsa. After high school they came to New York City together, where they worked on many projects over the years, as described in Padgett’s Joe: A Memoir of Joe Brainard (2004).
Wayne Padgett (b. 1966). Son of Ron and Pat Padgett. But also Wayne Padgett (1922–1991), the father of Ron Padgett, described in JB’s piece “Back in Tulsa Again.”
Brigid (Berlin) Polk (b. 1939). Artist of the Andy Warhol circle and friend of JB.
Carter Ratcliff (b. 1941). Poet, art writer, and acquaintance of JB who has written perceptive essays about him.
Larry Rivers (1923–2002). Artist and friend of JB. Rivers picked the young JB to show alongside him in Joe’s first New York group show, at Finch College (1965).
D. D. Ryan (1928–2007). Fashion expert, photographer, and friend of JB.