I Remember

Sometime a book of the most stunning originality is the easiest to imitate. I Remember is simply that: a series of tiny declarations, all beginning, "I remember...." The poet and artist Joe Brainard began recording them in the late '60s, and, like Whitman with Leaves of Grass, he spent the rest of his life adding to, revising, and republishing them in different forms. It's something anyone could do (and many have in tribute), but Brainard's artfully constructed combination of naive nostalgia and taboo-busting candor—"I remember butter and sugar sandwiches," "I remember peeing all over J.J. Mitchell in a dream once"—remains fresh, startling, and absolutely, thrillingly life-affirming.