Joe Brainard

Joe Brainard's I Remember is a literary and artistic cult classic, praised and admired by writers from Paul Auster to John Ashery and Edmund White. As autobiography, Brainard's method was brilliantly simple: to set down specific memories as they rose to the surface of his consciousness, each prefaced by the refrain "I remember": "I remember when I thought that if you did anything bad, policemen would put you in jail."

Brainard's enduring gem of a book has been issued in various forms over the past thirty years. In 1970, Angel Hair books published the first edition of I Remember, which quickly sold out; he wrote two subsequent volumes for Angel Hair, More I Remember (1972) and More I Remember More (1973), both of which proved as popular as the original. In 1973, the Museum of Modern Art in New York published Brainard's I Remember Christmas, a new text for which he also contributed a cover design and four drawings. Excerpts from the Angel Hair editions appeared in Interview, Gay Sunshine, The World and the New York Herald. Then in 1975, Full Court Press issued a revised version collecting all three of the Angel Hair volumes and added new material, using the original title I Remember. This complete edition is prefaced by poet and translator Ron Padgett.

Kenward Elmslie’s way with words cuts a singular path through a polymath variety of forms. Jukebox hitlet sung by Nat King Cole. Ahead-of-their-time lingo works: The Champ, poem, City Junket, play. Balloons for Cartoons by Joe Brainard. Puréed anthropological tales of fantasy drinking establishments: 26 Bars. Quirky surreal poetry mosaics (Routine Disruptions) that prompted Michael Silverblatt, host of NPR’s "Book Worm" program to finger Kenward as “Hands down, my favorite contemporary poet.” Elmslie’s verbal swath includes The Grass Harp (Broadway cult-fave musical) and annum 2000, Postcards on Parade, composed by Steven Taylor, a concept musical that deconstructs musicals. Plus Cyberspace, tech poem enhanced by Trevor Winkfield visuals. The wrap: Nite Soil introduces Kenward, poet of dense stanzas, to Elmslie, outed collagist of resonant icons in a smartly packaged collection of 41 full-color postcards.

41 full-color postcards in a folding card cover. Printed offset in an edition of 3000 of which 26 copies are lettered and signed by the artist, each with a unique handmade collage by Kenward Elmslie. The limited edition of 26 is out-of-print; the regular edition is available, as new.

What do gardens mean and how can they change the world? A Garden Manifesto gathers radical visions rooted in the earth from artists, writers, gardeners and activists, among them Lubaina Himid, Derek Jarman, Jamaica Kincaid, Ana Mendieta, Dan Pearson and Wolfgang Tillmans. It’s a seed box for an uncertain future, packed with anarchic dreams of Eden-making and humming with resistance to the colonial project of homogenisation and destruction.

Featuring William Blake, Joe Brainard, Jonny Bruce, John Clare, Gerry Dalton, Ellen Dillon, Baha Ebdeir, Alys Fowler, Magdalena Suarez Frimkess, Gaylene Gould, Green Guerillas, Joy Gregory, Fritz Haeg, Lubaina Himid, Philip Hoare, Rosie Hudson, Derek Jarman, Chantal Joffe, Laura Joy, Jamaica Kincaid, Elisabeth Kley, Olivia Laing, Jeremy Lee, Siobhan Liddell, Alison Lloyd, Hilary Lloyd, Jo McKerr, Lee Mary Manning, Ana Mendieta, Bernadette Mayer, Rosemary Mayer, Huw Morgan, Eileen Myles, Hussein Omar, Palestinian Heirloom Seed Library, Ian Patterson, Dan Pearson, Jean Perréal, Charlie Porter, Pat Porter, J. H. Prynne, Claire Ratinon, Jamie Reid, Lisa Robertson, Kuba Ryniewicz, Saadi, Sui Searle, Sei Shōnagon, Colin Stewart, Tabboo!, Edward Thomasson, Wolfgang Tillmans, Scott Treleaven, John Wieners, David Wojnarowicz, Matt Wolf and Sarah Wood