by Portlyn Houghton-Harjo
I’m reading Joe’s piece, “Back in Tulsa Again” because I am back in Tulsa again after living in Brooklyn for a few years. Brainard writes that “the sky is higher in Tulsa. The sky is higher in Tulsa than in New York.” This line reminds me of a quote that I think Ed Ruscha said, but I can never find the source. “I am a victim of the horizon.” Maybe that's Tulsa vs. OKC, though. The lateral plane is more evident in OKC. The vertical constantly above you in Tulsa. It makes you wanna strain your neck and look up. You can still see the stars at night.
There’s something very Tulsan about Brainard’s art. The altering, the recreating, the collaging, and the layers of it all remind me of the artists and writers I know here. There’s an undeniable energy and originality to Brainard’s visual and written work—”I Remember” was considered one of the most original poems of its time. Alternative literary legends like Edmund White and Paul Auster, among many other friends of Brainard, recognized his particular and fresh voice as necessary, with Auster saying that “the so-called important books of our time will be forgotten, but Joe Brainard's modest little gem will endure.” His constant use and reuse of the comic strip character, Nancy, is a tongue-in-cheek presentation of Nancy through his absurdist prompts. Brainard had icons. Cigarette butts, pansies, and Nancy. All common insults to gay men, which I have to believe is why Brainard repurposed them in his art. He took these images and distorted them again and again. His poetry takes his life and the people in it and serves it back to us, all with a wink. He looks up at the sky, finds the poetry, and writes it all down.
When I first read Joe Brainard, I was 14 and had just started writing poetry. I did not know what made Tulsa special (yet), but people were always trying to show me. Around this time, my dad and Lee Roy Chapman were hanging out a lot. I’d see him pull up in that old van to hand out a new batch of shirts and immediately loved the drama of it all. It was during one of these drop-ins when my dad and Lee Roy told me about the Tulsa faction of the New York School. A few months before he passed, Lee Roy gave me two copies of the Evergreen Review, which blew up my poetry for the better. Eventually, I left and studied poetry in Brooklyn, where I saw the consequences of these Tulsans. I guess I thought that interest in Joe Brainard, Ron Padgett, etc., was reserved for Tulsa freaks. Our reach feels so small sometimes, which is how I like it. In Brooklyn, I was meeting devotees to the New York School, and by extension, to Tulsa’s influence. Of course, often, they weren’t interested in Tulsa. Maybe Joe or Ron’s Tulsa, but not the Tulsa that I brought to them. The good ones cared because they could see the mark this city leaves on people who grew up here—askew and uncomfortably in the middle of extremes.
In “Back in Tulsa Again,” when Joe, Pat, and Ron enter Tulsa, they sing “Oklahoma.” Once, at a small party, my friends and I sang Oklahoma. In the middle of it all, tornado sirens went off. We were mocking our state, and the skies answered us, saying, “Take cover and take me seriously.” It was a ridiculous moment, almost as Oklahoman as seeing Wayne Coyne walk into the Muskogee Ren Faire with an opened Sonic hard seltzer (yes, I saw it!). Through all Brainard’s works, even as he mocks, his affection is evident. He had a love for the world around him. I think, as Okies, we make fun of the things we love as a way to pay respect to it.
The Center for Public Secrets will host "Doves All The Way Down: Remembering Joe Brainard" a poetry reading and exhibition of the work of Joe Brainard, on March 9th, 2025, from 6-8 pm at 573 S Peoria Ave in Tulsa.
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