Ron Padgett, "Joe Brainard's Painting Bingo" & "The Austrian Maiden"
LISTEN TO THE SHOW
Al Filreis brought together James Berger and Richard Deming (who traveled together from Yale) and Sophia DuRose to talk about two poems by Ron Padgett. The poems are “The Austrian Maiden” and “Joe Brainard’s Painting Bingo.” Our recording of “The Austrian Maiden” comes from a February 26, 2003, reading Padgett gave at the Kelly Writers House; the poem had just recently been published in Padgett’s book You Never Know (2002). The recording of “Joe Brainard’s Painting Bingo” — a poem published in Great Balls of Fire (1969) — was performed at a November 20, 1979, reading given at a location that is now (sadly) unknown. That reading in its entirety is available at Padgett’s PennSound page; the recording comes to us courtesy of the Maureen Owen Collection of Greenwich Village Poetry, now housed at the Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
April 17, 2024
Small Fires Press
Friedrich Kerksieck established Small Fires Press after meeting Walter Hamady in 2004. With a handful of titles to his credit, he enrolled in the esteemed MFA in Book Arts Program at the University of Alabama, where he studied with Steve Miller. Being an entirely self-taught printer, I’ve always been a little bit jealous of those who have had the opportunity to learn the finer points of typography and printing from Miller, who in turn, learned from Hamady when he was a student in Wisconsin in the 1970s. Hamady, in turn, was inspired by (but never formally studied with) Harry Duncan of The Cummington Press. Suddenly, the roots and branches of the family tree become more pronounced. Although each of these artists and their presses are, of course, distinct, there is a family resemblance worth noting. Compare Wallace Stevens’ Esthétique du Mal published by Cummington in 1945 to Scott Pierce’s Some Bridges Migrate published by Small Fires in 2008, and you’ll see what I mean. However, in book arts, it’s critical to note the importance of the distinction between resemblance and imitation. For example, there’s a whole lot of Perishable Press knockoffs floating around that aspire to Hamady’s mastery and originality through mere imitation that, unfortunately, culminate in an absurd collection of literary tropes and cute, but meaningless, artsy gimmicks. Resemblance has more to do with a history of ideas, the integrity of the imagination, and respect for the construction of things.