Berrigan's and Brainard's Literature

A Letter of Friendly, Joe Brainard (1957, Emory Rose Library)

Ted Berrigan's and Joe Brainard's influences show strongly in their respective magnum opuses: The Sonnets and I Remember. Below, we compare various collage techniques that are used in each work.

Time:

Time in literary works normally functions chronologically, but The Sonnets and I Remember challenge this notion — they are cyclical. Both authors were inspired to explore simultaneity by the Cubists, who were interested in the simultaneity of looking at multiple perspectives at once.

The Sonnets:

Berrigan's specific technique of re-using lines from other people's and his own poetry was taken from a Dadaist writer, Tristan Tzara (Notley ix). In his "How to Write a Dadaist Poem," Tzara gives specific instructions like "Cut out each of the words in an article" and "Copy conscientiously" ("Tzara"). Berrigan takes this literally in The Sonnets.

To illustrate how Berrigan's collage techniques create new perspectives, we have picked two poems to compare with each other: Sonnet XXI and "Penn Station." These two poems both consist of the same lines; however, the order in which those lines are placed completely changes the perspective of the poems. In particular, the way in which the line "As so we all must in the green jungle" (Berrigan 19) exemplifies how the combination of words can change the perspective of each poem. When combined with the line "Who died of lust (You lie! You lie!)," (Berrigan 11) the aforementioned line adds an ominous tone to "Penn Station." In contrast, Sonnet XXI combines the line with "Bring in the green boy white ways," (Berrigan 19) which makes absolutely no sense.

More I Remember More (Brainard, 1973, Emory Rose Library). Cover of the 1973 version of I Remember, which is one of four volumes that spans the entire modern day version. Having covers representing various ages in Brainard's Life (childhood to adulthood, not in sequence) shows simultaneity through visual as well.

Ted Berrigan reading Penn Station (top panel) and Sonnet XXI (bottom panel) (1981,Penn Sounds). Notice that the repetitions of the same poetic phrases in a different sequence creates two separate perspectives of interpretation.

Berrigan-Ted_12_Penn-Station_The-Sonnets_New-Langton_1981.mp3

Berrigan-Ted_19_Sonnet-21_The-Sonnets_New-Langton_1981.mp3

I Remember:

Through a collage tactic of immersiveness in material, Brainard is able to generate a sense of timelessness in his narrative and yield a complete visual picture in the mind of the reader. This is achieved by encapsulating memories at different periods of his existence and collectively grouping them together as a single unit irrespective of their relative precedence.

Brainard's remembrances span his entire life spectrum: Childhood exuberance ("I remember Halloween"), Adolescent worries ("I remember in junior high school asking a girl..."), and even Adulthood solemnities ("I remember being talked about as though I wasn't there"). By eliminating a sequential order, Brainard coalesces all these varying emotions and darkest desires into a singular defining moment that is, in its essence, the entire book. The audience thus becomes inclined to analyze the literature as a whole rather than its individual parts. Overall, this is a perfect representation of the collage aesthetic: The simultaneity of combination leads to a global perspective, culminating in a greater sense of clarity and understanding for the reader.

References:

A key aspect of works by the New York School that spearheaded the collage aesthetic was how often they referenced contemporaries and influences. Berrigan and Brainard did not shy from doing this either. It was not uncommon for the Dadaists to reference and even use the works of other artists as their templates, such as when Marcel Duchamp drew a mustache on the Mona Lisa and called it his own work.

I Remember:

First and foremost, through his self-referential process, Joe Brainard prioritizes the commemoration of his New York School peers who have had such a profound influence on his life and work: Ron Padgett, Frank O'Hara, Pat Mitchell, and Kenward Elmslie, among many others, are all praised in great capacity.

However, Brainard's role models do not solely lie in the world of poetry. As seen in his narrative, practically every possible art genre of the 19th and 20th centuries is mentioned through a pertinent celebrity of that time period: Film (Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift), Music (Perry Como, Dinah Shore), Painting (Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh), and even Writing (Norman Vincent Peale, Fyodor Dostoevsky).

The final effect is that I Remember is transformed into a map of existence. Brainard's message is that one's life isn't defined solely by his or her work discipline; rather, one needs to experience a plethora of moments in various other forms to realize the value of living on planet Earth. Only then is a collage - an amalgamation of differing segments encompassing various aspects of your personality - truly complete. By not being solely rooted into the field of poetry and instead expanding his horizons to other distinct styles of art, Brainard ensures that I Remember contains variety in its discourse.

The Sonnets:

Like Joe Brainard, Ted Berrigan also chooses to employ The Sonnets as a social connector in order to reach his professional and personal life acquaintances. Examples include Guillaume Apollinaire, the French writer who developed the Calligramme style of poetry, the cultural icon Elvis Presley, and Neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David.

In addition to just simply naming his friends, Berrigan goes the extra mile and actually incorporates their artistic language in some of his individual sonnets. Poem in the Modern Manner utilizes the lyrical restlessness and intelligence of New York School contemporary Ron Padgett, Sonnet XXXI mirrors the assortment of emotions explored by Kenneth Koch in his poetry, and Sonnet LXXVI contains the urbane polish and celebratory humor that Frank O'Hara is renowned for.

As a result of this writing method, The Sonnets becomes a collage of style instead of a traditional collage of sight. By mixing together the different techniques of various Second Generation poets into a single work, Berrigan encourages his audience to understand the subtleties of the poetic genre and appreciate the juxtaposition of its diverse practices. Through this dissonance in expression, a union is ironically brought to light which conveys the foundational principles espoused by the New York School. This constitutes the purpose of a collage.

IMAGERY:

Finally, Joe Brainard and Ted Berrigan both embrace an evocative tone which allows them to easily manifest their unfiltered emotions and thoughts onto paper without any restrictions. In accordance with New York School ideals, they both broke away from the societal stereotype of the time period, which was to always be diplomatic and dignified in any discourse. A consequence of this mentality was the presence of very descriptive sections in their literature, which naturally led to the development of a visual collage aesthetic.

The Sonnets:

One way that Berrigan develops the sense of imagery present in The Sonnets through the prominent technique of repetition. Over the course of the 88 sonnets present, several lines are repeated a multitude of times, each time representing a different meaning unique to the context of the individual sonnet that it appears in. A good example of this is the phrase "There is no such thing as a breakdown". In Sonnet XVII (for Carol Clifford), this sentence exemplifies the liberating aspect of Earth's nature despite the presence of numerous objects, signifying that a "breakdown" can never occur. The attributed meaning here is quite subtle and relaxing, initiating a corresponding visual portrait for every audience member. However, in Sonnet LXV, the connotation of this line completely changes by 180 degrees to symbolize a dramatic and dark finality to Chinese execution, producing a completely different sketch for the reader to interpret than before. In conclusion, Berrigan manifests a feeling of collage through an organic definition of the same lines.

Another strategy Berrigan puts in place to achieve this imagery is the creation of sonnets with wide emotional mood swings. An instance of this can be seen in Sonnet LXV, where Berrigan narrates, "He eats the fruits of the great Speckle bird, Pissing on the grass! I too am reading the technical journals... " Here, his modification in mentality goes beyond human capacity, with a persona that changes from that of a mad man to that of an erudite scholar. With such a substantial shift in tone, the reader is almost guaranteed to produce a drawing in their head accommodating these two externalities. This juxtaposed image adds to the overall collage aesthetic.

Cover art by Joe Brainard (1964, Emory Rose Library). Abstractness yields a variety of interpretations from viewer to viewer. Represents the collage aesthetic Brainard was intending to construct in I Remember.

Painting from The Drunken Boat (Brainard, 1974, Emory Rose Library). The ideas of the text surrounding the speech bubble are quite revealing and would normally be kept as thoughts. Just as in I Remember, Brainard wishes to reveal his true state of being to everyone.

Artwork from the Emory Rose Library (1964). Mirrors technique of The Sonnets through a repetition of star images, each of which are distinct in their own way.

Photo from the C-Press Magazine (1963, Emory Rose Library). Demonstrates the synchronization of two perspectives at once, much like the evolving meaning of poetic lines in The Sonnets.

I Remember:

In his catalog of memories, Joe Brainard includes not just the happy and peaceful times, but also the grotesque and ghastly occasions. He recounts a story that was told to him as a teenager, in which a butcher murdered his wife and ground her up in hamburger meat, only to be imprisoned for life due to the presence of his wife's fingernail in a customer's hamburger. The vivid detail present in this story is sure to elicit a conglomeration of graphic images in the minds of any audience member. These pictures are sure to be different for every reader based on their unique personal insights. Therefore, from this artistry, Brainard implicitly develops mini-collages that can be associated with every recollection.

The above approach is also applied to Brainard's memories that directly correlate to his unique emotions. For example, he reminisces over the most practical and efficient way to commit suicide should the occasion arise, coming to the conclusion that "disappearing" in the water would be the best tactic. Yet again, these are extremely morbid thoughts for an average human being to actively contemplate. However, Brainard chooses to put these ideas on display for the entire world to see so that readers can directly view his raw psyche. The natural effect which follows is that the audience will imagine this suicide scenario themselves, thereby creating a set of heterogeneous cognitive photos. The fact that each photo has the capacity to differ dramatically from person to person, based on distinctive viewpoints, is what truly makes this memory a collage; the variation in interpretation culminates in a fragmented picture built truly from the ground up. Through this appeal to vision, Joe Brainard construct I Remember as an effective pictorial text.

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