I Remember

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant!!!
Review: I didn't think it could be done, but Joe Brainard has managed to keep me interested through a book-length poem! It's all about the pop culture references and those universal moments of feeling just plain odd. Every stanza begins with "I remember", but he manages not to make it boring at all.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant!!!
Review: I didn't think it could be done, but Joe Brainard has managed to keep me interested through a book-length poem! It's all about the pop culture references and those universal moments of feeling just plain odd. Every stanza begins with "I remember", but he manages not to make it boring at all.

Rating:
Summary: Unforgettable
Review: I just picked up a copy of "I Remember" at a Joe Brainard retrospective at the Berkeley Art Museum last weekend. All the warmth, humor and good-natured silliness of his art are here in these "poems"--1-3 sentence reminiscences that meander from his Tulsa childhood to sexual experiences in New York in the mid '60s. It's tempting to quote individual lines, but I'd best leave the writing to Brainard. Just dip in anywhere and follow the flow from objects to advertisements to remembrances of friends or incidents or walks, all woven together by the nostalgic refrain: "I remember . . . "

Brainard records impressions like a camera, not trying to make them mean. Without pretension or irony, he mananges to describe an America of a certain time and place more vividly than longer, more macho efforts to capture The American Experience. Brainard makes it seem easy, and he passes the fun on to you. Read, remember, enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Handbook for 'Writers' Block'
Review: I saw this book recommended by one of my favorite authors, Michael Cunningham (he wrote THE HOURS). Michael teaches a Creative Writing course at Columbia University and I'm sure he implores his students to read this one. It is an easy, simple read of "I REMEMBER..." lines of memories from the 1940s and 1950s. It is a 'must read' for any writer who has writers block as it will spur new ideas into one's head, encouraging one to write their very OWN 'I Remember' lines. I really enjoyed it, relating and laughing several times--I ended up finishing it in one day as a break from another book.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Handbook for 'Writers' Block'
Review: I saw this book recommended by one of my favorite authors, Michael Cunningham (he wrote THE HOURS). Michael teaches a Creative Writing course at Columbia University and I'm sure he implores his students to read this one. It is an easy, simple read of "I REMEMBER..." lines of memories from the 1940s and 1950s. It is a 'must read' for any writer who has writers block as it will spur new ideas into one's head, encouraging one to write their very OWN 'I Remember' lines. I really enjoyed it, relating and laughing several times--I ended up finishing it in one day as a break from another book.

Rating:
Summary: Unsung but not forgotten
Review: Yes, and we remember you, Joe. Lovely man (not that I ever knew the geezer) and the originator in this work of the Je me souviens format for which Georges Perec (of the pretentious/ludicrous Oulipo group)is always given credit. Did Georges discover Joe via Harry Mathews? Anyways, he wouldn'ta minded. An American original; pity he never turned his hand to opera libretti. When can we expect the Collected Writings please?

Rating:
Summary: Unsung but not forgotten
Review: Yes, and we remember you, Joe. Lovely man (not that I ever knew the geezer) and the originator in this work of the Je me souviens format for which Georges Perec (of the pretentious/ludicrous Oulipo group)is always given credit. Did Georges discover Joe via Harry Mathews? Anyways, he wouldn'ta minded. An American original; pity he never turned his hand to opera libretti. When can we expect the Collected Writings please?