Tag Archives: Joe Brainard

Voice Workshop, 14 March 2015

by Andrew | Leave a comment

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Find Your Voice is one of the great myths of creative writing; you have a voice already, so let’s find ways to turn it into writing.

That is the summary form of this workshop at Saturday’s Getting Published Day, where we discussed how the natural speaking voice is one of the greatest gifts for any writer. It’s authentic, it’s fresh. It’s usually direct and economical and uncluttered, with relatively few adjectives or adverbs. And best of all (if you’re lazy, like me), the natural speaking voice is accessible and instinctive. It’s easy to use. Why make life hard?

We talked about overwriting, and writing that tries too hard. Fiction has the purpose of telling a story, and anything that gets in the way of moving that story forward might need to be pruned; as my teacher and friend Bobbie Louise Hawkins used to say: ‘Tell it fast, honey, tell it fast!’ We also thought about tone as an aspect of voice that brings emotion into our work, and we considered voice as an aspect of the style or personality of a piece of writing.

I didn’t get time to specifically introduce the idea of persona, but we can also think about the way in which a voice can shape and reflect character – Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads monologues are a great example of this, and they also (as we did manage to discuss) provide fantastic examples of the ways in which everyday voices make characters and stories come to life. Look some of them up and listen to them. We did manage to listen to Nina Stibbe read the opening of her memoir Love, Nina, which is based on her letters home from London; handwritten letters are perhaps the closest we get to the natural speaking voice instinctively working on a page, and the ones in this book have a beautiful, fresh voice full of warmth and concrete observations. Strong and simple verbs, strong and simple nouns. We also read aloud part of Joe Brainard’s ‘I Remember’, which also lacks self-consciousness while possessing personality in spades.

We focused on first-person narration, though, as I said, this can present limits within the larger scheme of a novel. But practising your own writing by using the first-person can be a fabulous way of growing your own strong voice, and at certain points in your career as a writer it makes sense to invest time in practice rather than being so outcome-oriented. So here are some previously posted writing experiments relative to voice:

Voice 1: Listening
Voice 2: Tone
Voice 3: Passion and Purpose
Voice 4: Other Voices
Variations on the Form of ‘I Remember’
Dear Diaries

Try some of these exercises yourself. Even, perhaps, take some time away from your major project in order simply to experiment with voice in writing. E.g., instead of NaNoWriMo, why not write a different ‘I Remember’ every day for a month (I Remember School Holidays, I Remember My First Job, I Remember Dogs). Give yourself a month-long boot camp in which you exercise the muscle of that natural speaking voice on the page. Your voice will become stronger, I’m sure.

And my post Tell Me A Story might offer further ideas for how voice informs narration more broadly (including the importance of third-person narrators). The natural speaking voice often needs adapting, but it is a strong foundation for writing, particularly at the start of a project.

This workshop also addressed how achieving that natural speaking voice in writing might require us to learn how to write all over again. Maybe that is just a matter of shaking off other forms of writing that have captured our voices for other purposes. Here are the examples I read out in class of voices that have, for whatever reason, become garbled, cluttered, opaque or meaningless. First, some academic writing (which I confess to nicking from the Bad Writing Contest once run by the scholarly journal Philosophy and Literature):

The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.

An example of pasty writing of a different kind (a thinner paste, less goopy) came from a university selling one of its courses (I borrowed this from Constance Hale’s excellent Sin and Syntax):

The programme will be of interest to graduates as well as professionals working in these areas … It will be of relevance to those desirous of adding legal understandings to these perspectives. It will also be of interest to students wishing to proceed to a doctorate in the anthropology of human rights and related areas.

Publishers are not immune from garbled stodge, either, as this bit of a recent press release shows:

Immersing oneself anew in the rhythms and cadences of Harper Lee’s rich prose and meeting Scout fully grown makes for an irresistible read which also casts new light on one of the most popular classics of modern literature.

Styles of writing found in commercial or business contexts can also creep into fiction:

World-famous toggler and man about town Linus Walping entered his spacious, well-appointed apartment and walked to the handcrafted artisanal windows, where he basked in the breathtaking and unparalleled vistas of the magnificent Lavish River awaiting his gaze. Just returned from a first-class whirlwind vacation with his girlfriend, the glamorous model/actress Rain Weste, at the luxurious playground of the upper crust, the deluxe five-star Splendide Hotel in the heart of metropolitan Darien’s top-notch nightlife and luxury shopping, Reginald looked forward to a delicious, mouth-watering repast, sure to rival his wildest dream.

This example of slick writing laden with info dumps is taken from How Not to Write a Novel, and, being practical rather than bitchy about bad writing, I read out a wise observation from its authors: ‘Advertising copywriters are faced with a very different task than you, the novelist. They generally have only a few lines to get their message across – only seconds of the reader’s attention – and they have for this reason developed a concentrated and artificial form of language, very different from what we general think of in writing.’

So: what is the purpose of the writing you are doing, and what sort of voice does it need? Fiction and narrative nonfiction often use connotation and suggestion to create mood and energy, unlike other types of writing that explain or describe things in more explicit detail as they primarily need to convey information or ideas without ambiguity. Stories need to bring worlds of feeling to life. Stories sometimes need to embody life’s great mysteries.

Apologies (again) for tech hitches – I think I’m just going to *not* rely on technology at all in future! But I think we managed okay in the end. And apologies for not covering so many other things we could have touched upon. There’s only so much we can cover in an hour (Tell it fast, honey, tell it fast!).

But the last two things I want to stress:

* Listen to audiobooks, even if it’s just occasionally. And preferably only listen to the good recordings – memorable ones for me include Brokeback Mountain read by Campbell Scott, the third Harry Potter read by Jim Dale on a road trip to Las Vegas, and On the Road read by Matt Dillon, which is utterly utterly magical. Do share any of your own favourites in comments below.

Listening is another aspect of reading, after all, and it can be an immersive and transformative experience that will soak into your writing bones.

* Read your own work aloud. It’s a great test when revising and editing. If you stumble, might something need changing? Maybe read your own work aloud to someone else. If their eyes glass over, maybe you need to do something to make the writing less boring. If their eyes light up, you’re doing something right: return to that later, and bottle it.

(Though, of course, know that some writing is destined to be read quietly and alone in acts of contemplation, rather than read aloud. There are always exceptions in the creative arts. In this instance, I’m saying that reading aloud is a useful tool, even if not the final intended outcome.)

A third thing (me and my voice, I can’t stop talking, excess is my weakness). Thinking of eyes glassing over, there is an exception to the idea there are no rules in writing. There is one and only one rule in writing:

* Don’t be boring.

Friday Writing Experiment No. 20: Lists, Lovely Lists

by Andrew | Leave a comment

ListBooks

I love lists. I have whole spiels on lists in literature. ‘Howl’ by Allen Ginsberg. Sections of the Old Testament (all that begetting). Christopher Smart’s ‘For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry’. The lists in Moby-Dick. Joe Brainard’s ‘I Remember’. Anne Waldman’s ‘Fast-Speaking Woman’. Sei Shonagon’s Pillow Book. Tim O’Brien’s ‘The Things They Carried’. Contents lists. Lists of illustrations. Indexes; how I loved to copyedit indexes when I worked in-house. When I was about thirteen, I was rarely happier than when I was geekily flicking through The Book of Lists (both volumes).

Lists have life, lists have colour, lists point in many directions nearly all at once. Lists don’t overexplain, or editorialise, or whine (at least the good ones don’t); lists just are. Lists accrete. Their items are not connected by cause and effect, but just sit beside one another with paratactic superpowers. Sometimes life’s like that: wonderfully random, surprising.

I recently read a couple of good articles on lists in literature: ’10 Lists That Read Like Poems’ in Flavorwire (which itself is a site somewhat devoted to the form) and ‘Literary Lists: Proof of Our Existence’ in the Guardian. They mention Umberto Eco, whose beautifully illustrated The Infinity of Lists sits on my shelf. In it he itemises lists both practical and poetic, miraculous and non-normal, and with some fantastic imagery states a case for the presence of lists in visual as well as written arts, and also for the list as a form that aspires to the infinite:

There is, however, another mode of artistic representation, i.e., when we do not know the boundaries of what we wish to portray, when we do not know how many things we are talking about and presume their number to be, if not infinite, then at least astronomically large.

This week, write a list. Or lots of lists. A list a day. Here are some more inspirations or models:

* Anne’s Porter’s ‘List of Praises’

* A list of gratitudes (thanks to Bhanu Kapil for that idea)

* What I will and won’t miss (inspired by Nora Ephron; I love the way in which the tone shifts from the terse itemisation of things she won’t miss to the more open and affectionate style in the list of things that will be missed; and we miss you too, Nora)

* A list of friends (elaborated or not)

* A list of questions without answers (thanks to Jack Collom for that one)

* An ‘I Remember’ on a specific subject, e.g., first times, last times, friends, enemies, people you’ve worked with (that one’s fun), holidays or vacations, places you’ve been, things you’ve eaten, Christmas presents

* A manifesto of reasons (for x, or y maybe – to change the law, to not go to school, to follow advice, to be cheerful)

* An ‘I Remember’ for a character in a novel

* A shopping list for a character

* A bucket list of things a character wants to do before he or she dies

* A list of ingredients

* A menu of desires (seeing your desires through food imagery)

* A pillow book of adorable things

* A list of prayers for weak or fabulous (or whatever else) beings (inspired by ‘Twenty-One Prayers for Weak or Fabulous Beings’ by Toby Martinez de las Rivas)

* A classification system for your library

* A bestiary of imagined animals

* The things you carried

* A catalogue of new things, and/or an archive of old things

Gosh, this list-making is addictive. I could go on. One day I’ll teach a whole class on lists. But for now I’ll post this, early in the week for a change. That keen. Maybe some of you have snow days, and need something to do.

As ever: be concrete, and specific. Though some abstractions can work well, as William T. Vollmann’s ‘List of Social Changes that Would Assist the Flourishing of Literary Beauty’ proves very neatly.

Further reading
Larry Fagin, The List Poem
A List of the Greatest Lists in Literature (from the Atlantic)

Friday Writing Experiment No. 3: Variations on the Form of ‘I Remember’

by Andrew | 3 Comments

We all love ‘I Remember’ exercises. Based on the beguiling book-length memoir-poem by Joe Brainard, and popularised by teachers such as Jack Collom and Kenneth Koch, these pieces of writing simply start each line with the words ‘I remember’ then evoke some memory. Some lines selected from Joe:

I remember jumping into piles of leaves and the dust, or whatever it is, that rises.
I remember raking leaves but I don’t remember burning leaves. I don’t remember what we ‘did’ with them.
I remember ‘Indian Summer’. And for years not knowing what it meant, except that I figured it had something to do with Indians.
I remember exactly how I visualised the Pilgrims and the Indians having the first Thanksgiving dinner together. (Very jolly!)
I remember Jack Frost. Pumpkin pie. Gourds. And very blue skies.
I remember Halloween.
I remember using getting dressed up as a hobo or a ghost. One year I was a skeleton.
I remember one house that always gave you a dime and several houses that gave you five-cent candy bars.
I remember after Halloween my brother and me spreading all out loot out and doing some trading.
I remember always at the bottom of the bag lots of dirty pieces of candy corn.
I remember the smell (not very good) of burning pumpkin meat inside jack-o’-lanterns.
I remember orange and black jellybeans at Halloween. And pastel-colored ones for Easter.
I remember ‘hard’ Christmas candy. Especially the ones with flower designs. I remember not liking the ones with jelly in the middle very much.

Another extract is available from his publisher here.

I Remembers rank among my favourite forms of writing, because:

1. the writing tends to be natural and easy, unforced and uncluttered – writing from the heart, writing from the gut.

2. the writing tends to be concrete, vivid, specific, e.g., the house that gave you a dime, and elsewhere in Brainard’s poem very light faded blue jeans, ice cubes in the aquarium, giving Aunt Ruby stationery or scarves for special occasions.

3. the writing usually shows rather than tells: the contents of Brainard’s version – references to movie stars and songs, the clothes, food, hardship and simple pleasures – conjure up a whole time and place, for example.

4. they are economical – each line or section stops when it has to stop, and then on to the next …

5. I love lists (if you couldn’t tell).

6. the form is regarded as both poem and/or prose and/or either/neither, and I love writing that plays with or maybe ignores categories, and simply enjoys being good writing.

7. the process of free association often takes us to places we never expected – what arises arises. In the extract above I love how we linger in specific memories of Halloween and then zip quickly via Easter to Christmas, where we will linger a page or two before moving on again – and returning elsewhere. There are many such threads and patterns through the book.

8. the writing is uncensored, authentic. For example, I note in the example above the reference to the Pilgrims and Indians celebrating a jolly Thanksgiving. Now: I don’t think it’s stretching things very far to say that that recollection is of a romanticised association! And we could of course parse that, and discuss what it means, e.g., in terms of decolonising the historical record. But the actual writing here is simply being honest – it’s about recalling a perception, a time and place – and it is being true to that. (Even if it’s not true to the historical record, and we hope there will have been scope for future reconstruction!) Elsewhere in the poem we get gender- and race-based descriptions that are products of that time, and there is an awful lot of sexually graphic and extremely fruity content. It means I’m always careful about selecting extracts for classes! But again: this has a truth.

9. the simplest things are often the best

10. I LOVE JOE BRAINARD! I mean, he painted pansies and whippets – what more could I want?

11. and repeating myself – the writing is natural and easy, unforced and uncluttered

There is of course a risk that this sort of writing unearths deep, sad memories. Maybe that’s not a risk. Maybe we need to confront those memories from time to time? But maybe, unless that is its purpose, we also need to set limits around that sort of writing (or have a therapist to hand). I often suggest that writers focus on, e.g., happy memories. The tone in the writing often ends up being quite soft and nostalgic, anyway.

So: this week, write an ‘I Remember’. But also introduce some twists, or focuses. For example:

* Remember your schooldays, a holiday, Christmas, a wedding, a love affair

* Remember your first times

* Remember your blessings (count them, even)

* Remember your failures (but maybe limit them … and only if you next:)

* Remember your successes (unlimited, and remembered after your failures – let’s end on a high, please)

* Draw (and write) your own graphic I Remember in comic strip format.

* And maybe do ‘I remember’ for characters in your fictions? This can involve a slight shift in the writing, and perhaps a bit more thought than some of the more natural, I-centred versions, but it can also be a good way to graft some of your fictional content on to your natural, easy, remembering voice

* I don’t remember (good for surfacing secrets and lies and subtexts and regrets and all that other good story stuff)

* And invent your own rememberings too! (Give us some prompts and ideas too, if you like.)

You can probably write forever this way. You might want to set some limits (time; focuses). Or you might not.

Enjoy! These pieces really are some of the most fun in writing. And also the most rewarding, working on voice and tone, and digging into the mysterious caverns of intention. Let things arise.

 

Further viewing and reading

All credit to Joe Brainard and his I Remember, now in its own very handsome UK edition from Notting Hill Editions.

The Joe Brainard website

The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard from the Library of America

I Remember Joe Brainard

A wonderful series of films from Loewe, via Loewe celebrates the fanzines and pansies of queer artist Joe Brainard (Wallpaper, 25 January 2021):
* Joe’s brother John Brainard in conversation with lifelong friend Ron Padgett – childhood, early influences
* Paul Auster and Jim Jarmusch discuss Joe Brainard’s writings – especially the brilliance of I Remember
* Curator Constance Lewallen and poet Anne Waldman, who first published I Remember as a series of books, discuss Joe Brainard’s art – creative process, New York in the 1960s, his role as a gay artist. Anne Waldman first published I Remember as a series of books – thank you, Anne, the world is forever in your debt!

And this is the trailer for I Remember, a short documentary on Joe Brainard.

Make Your Own Brainard – an interactive celebration of Joe Brainard’s collages

Andrew H. Miller, B-Sides: Joe Brainard’s I Remember – a lovely critical overview

Cori Hutchinson, Joe Brainard’s ‘Hot Bodies’

The I Remember form that has been adapted by other writers. Georges Perec’s I Remember, published in the UK by Belgravia Books, serves as an interesting point of comparison. After reading that book I discovered that Perec added a Oulipan constraint of including only things that other people could remember too. This adds a certain emphasis on public rather than personal history that makes his version at times feel more like a list of bald facts, which perhaps explains why I felt less connected to it emotionally. Its tone feels more detached (and at times even a bit name-droppy). Forty years after it was written, I was also unfamiliar with many of those specific names and events too. I was unfamiliar with some of Brainard’s references as well, but somehow they get swept up in the warmth and wit of his tone, or are explained in context, so I never stumbled or drifted.

Also note Zeina Abirached’s graphic memoir I Remember Beirut.

Updates, 2020 and 2021: Here are others I’ve subsequently written (also see some more by others in the comments): I Remember the Library, I Remember York, I Remember Bobbie Louise Hawkins. I’ve also added further links, including those for books by Perec and Abirached, and altered the opening quotation to give a fuller illustration of the workings of Joe’s text. If you know of other examples, please add in a comment below.

Credits: The image of Joe Brainard’s mixed-media collage Blossom (1977) at the top of this page comes from http://www.joebrainard.org.