Mimeographed or xeroxed sheets stapled together, printed by mechanical means upon 8.5 x 14 inch (21.6 x 35.6 cm) sized sheets, printed on one side only. 56 unnumbered sheets including covers. In very good condition, with light soiling and toning to covers; creasing to bottom corners; first sheet separated at lower of three staples, else fine.
A rare example of this important collaborative (if short-lived at 2 issues) effort, the first, and much scarcer issue of the two issues of Brainard's artist periodical devoted to storyless or abstract comics in which Joe Brainard drew the panels and asked other writers to fill in the dialogue, forming both an homage to and a reinterpretation of the comic strip form. The comics here are drawn by Brainard in collaboration with notables of the early 60's New York School of Poetry including John Ashbery, Bill Berkson, Ted Berrigan, Robert Dash, Edwin Denby, Kenward Elmslie, Dick Gallup, Barbara Guest, Kenneth Koch, Frank Lima, Gerard Malanga, Frank O'Hara, Ron Padgett, Peter Schjeldahl, James Schuyler, Johnny Stanton, Tony Towle, Tom Veitch.
From the collection of Frank Bidart, who received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the Griffin Poetry Prize Lifetime Recognition Award, and the 2017 National Book Award for Poetry for his book Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016. Perhaps Bidart's most celebrated poem, "The Second Hour of the Night," is partly based on his relationship with Brainard. "The relationship was," as Bidart has said, both "more than friendship and less than a romance." His "In Memory of Joe Brainard" is a profound elegy for his friend who died of AIDS-induced pneumonia in 1994.
Mimeographed or xeroxed sheets stapled together, printed by mechanical means upon 8.5 x 14 inch (21.6 x 35.6 cm) sized sheets, printed on one side only. 56 unnumbered sheets including covers. In very good condition, with light soiling and toning to covers; creasing to bottom corners; first sheet separated at lower of three staples, else fine.
A rare example of this important collaborative (if short-lived at 2 issues) effort, the first, and much scarcer issue of the two issues of Brainard's artist periodical devoted to storyless or abstract comics in which Joe Brainard drew the panels and asked other writers to fill in the dialogue, forming both an homage to and a reinterpretation of the comic strip form. The comics here are drawn by Brainard in collaboration with notables of the early 60's New York School of Poetry including John Ashbery, Bill Berkson, Ted Berrigan, Robert Dash, Edwin Denby, Kenward Elmslie, Dick Gallup, Barbara Guest, Kenneth Koch, Frank Lima, Gerard Malanga, Frank O'Hara, Ron Padgett, Peter Schjeldahl, James Schuyler, Johnny Stanton, Tony Towle, Tom Veitch.
From the collection of Frank Bidart, who received the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the Griffin Poetry Prize Lifetime Recognition Award, and the 2017 National Book Award for Poetry for his book Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016. Perhaps Bidart's most celebrated poem, "The Second Hour of the Night," is partly based on his relationship with Brainard. "The relationship was," as Bidart has said, both "more than friendship and less than a romance." His "In Memory of Joe Brainard" is a profound elegy for his friend who died of AIDS-induced pneumonia in 1994.