MORE I REMEMBER MORE

New York: Angel Hair Books, (1973). First edition. [30 pp]. One of 700 copies. Some soiling to covers, else near fine in stapled wrappers. The third installment in Brainard’s I Remember series. Cover photograph of Brainard by Bill Katz. Influenced by Stein’s repetition and by Warhol’s repeated-image paintings from the early 1960s, Brainard used this technique to leap backward and forward in time and to follow one chain of associations for awhile, then jump to another, the way one’s mind does. Coupled with his impulse toward openness, the “I Remember” form provided a way for him to lay his soul bare in a collaged ‘autobiography’ that is personable, moving, perceptive, and funny. In May 1969, Brainard told Anne Waldman: “I am way up these days over a piece I am still writing called ‘I Remember.’ I feel I am very much like God writing the bible. I mean, I feel like I am not really writing it but that it is because of me that it is being written. I also feel that it is about everybody as much as it is about me. And it’s a nice feeling.” [Padgett, Joe 144-146 in Jaffee, Many Happy Returns 27]. On November 14, 1969, Brainard wrote to Waldman again: “What I really like is for you to print it ... or for you to let me read it as a reading at the church. If you should want to print it I can pay the expense. But even more than that, what I would really like is to read it.” [The Angel Hair Anthology, edited by Anne Waldman and Lewis Warsh 576 in Jaffe, Many Happy Returns 27].