I remember Brainard wrote, “I remember how rock and roll music can hurt, it can be so free and sexy when you are not.” I remember I read that and looked up images of Joe Strummer and Phil Lynott later. I remember the laundromat I read Brainard’s I Remember in one sitting. It was directly across the street from my sublet, a closet refurbished as a room. The laundromat had arcade games, Galaga, Pachinko, and detergent sold from a repurposed sticker vending machine. Its hours weren’t consistent, but there was usually the chance of writing or reading there until 2 a.m. I remember the poem I wrote in the laundromat. I called it, “After Brainard.” I remember writing, “I remember Harry Dean Stanton said Brando said Montgomery Clift said, ‘Stay thin-skinned, independently lazy.’” I remember feeling foolish for writing the poem. It was steeped in an affection that could go nowhere, but it felt true to a sensitivity that couldn’t be wrong for it centered on the purity of revelation, of heart. If Brainard had been alive I would have tracked him down, and asked him to notarize it. I Remember, and all of Brainard’s output, holds that sensitivity, foolish or not, must be preserved, it must be loose-leafed, xeroxed, saddle stitched, distributed to the sills of storefronts where the maître d' is preoccupied, again, with sensitivity. From a young age Brainard wanted to be a fashion designer. This changed when his friend Ron Padgett, a fellow Tulsan and high schooler, invited him to contribute a drawing as cover art for his new publication White Dove Review. Padgett and Brainard, inspired by Evergreen Review, would go on to publish five issues together and promptly move to New York, solidifying a coterie of writers and artists who felt as passionate about experimental form and collaboration. His art, though championed by these collaborators, retained an arresting timidity and acerbic wit. “I remember ‘The Tennessee Waltz.’ I remember butter and sugar sandwiches. I remember big fat ties with fish on them. I remember when I worked in an antique-junk shop and I sold everything cheaper than I was supposed to. I remember when girls wore cardigan sweaters backwards. I remember ‘four o clocks’ (a flower that closes at four).” Brainard does not shy from outlining difficult junctures, selling blood every three months on Second Avenue, wishing he knew now what he did not know then, but his ultimate advice is to be saccharine in a world that wishes you otherwise. Surely one can speak of the unsavory truths, the fated days, but it would be remiss not to remark on primary colors shifting, in restoring range of motion by writing a poem on cinnamon toothpicks and pastel-colored rocks in water.
-Katie Calderon