Research Catalog

Title

Piece of cake / Bernadette Mayer & Lewis Warsh.

Author

Mayer, Bernadette

Publication

Barrytown, New York : Station Hill Press, [2020]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Warsh, Lewis

Description

323 pages : illustrations; 23 cm

Summary

"Bernadette Mayer and Lewis Warsh wrote Piece of Cake as a work of collaborative prose poetry, based on a process of each writing on alternate days in the course of August of 1976-the bicentennial year of the America's Declaration of Independence. It recounts the quotidian details of daily activities, negotiating the exigencies of young, married-with-children life, the artistic path and citizenship. It has the classic "I did this, I did that" of a New York School of Poetry text, as characterized by the poetry of Frank O'Hara, and is somewhat reminiscent of Mayer's work Studying Hunger Journal, written not long before taking up Piece of Cake. Another distinguishing feature of this work is that it is arguably the first significant male-female collaboration in 20th century American poetry. Regarding the possible derivation of the work's title, and exemplary of the work's tenor, is the start of Warsh's entry of August 29: "I also recall getting up and eating a piece of left-over cake (a very sweet store-bought cake with green or possibly pinkish icing) and drinking a glass of milk at the kitchen window. Empty streets, no moon. Michael and Twinkie asleep on the floor of Bernadette's room, Guy and Karen in mine, Bill on the couch in the living room. Marie in her crib. Everyone 'dead to the world,' a phrase I dislike, what a full house.""--

Uniform Title

Poems. Selections

Alternative Title

Poems.

Genre/Form

Poetry.

Contents

Machine generated contents note: August 1 ("I'm in my room...") -- August 2 ("Marie waves her stick...") -- August 3 ("Marie's new schedule, hardly...") -- August 4 ("I dream we are...") -- August 5 ("We first learned about...") -- August 6 ("I dream I go...") -- August 7 ("A blue and white... ") -- August 8 ("Poisons, bacteria, fungi, viruses...") -- August 9 ("A hurricane warning is... ") -- August 10 ("I must admit I...") -- August 11 ("The hurricane hit Lenox...") -- August 12 ("It sure would be...") -- August 13 ("Today we take Marie...") -- August 14 (""Did you give your mother..."") -- August 15 ("My great-grandfather on...") -- August 16 ("Marie's ninth month begins -- August 17 ("Marie plays in her...") -- August 18 ("A little day off...") -- August 19 ("Each evening my parents...") -- August 20 ("Ray: It's been so..." -- August 21 ("Ỳou don't have to...'") -- August 22 ("Two-twenty p.m. I...") -- August 23 ("Hard to concentrate when...") -- August 24 ("Do you want to...") -- August 25 ("We all get out...") -- August 26 ("No mail but a... ") -- August 27 ("Does the weather affect...") -- August 28 ("There's something in the...") -- August 29 ("I remember getting into...") -- August 30 ("Dream Marie is delayed...") -- August 31 ("Still recovering from last... ").

Call Number

JFE 21-2003

ISBN

• 9781581771879
• 1581771878

LCCN

2019034605

OCLC

1114271402

Author

Mayer, Bernadette, author.

Title

Piece of cake / Bernadette Mayer & Lewis Warsh.

Publisher

Barrytown, New York : Station Hill Press, [2020]

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Added Author

Warsh, Lewis, author.

Other Form:

Online version: Mayer, Bernadette, Piece of cake Barrytown, NY : Station Hill Press, 2019. 9781581771886 (DLC) 2019034606

Research Call Number

JFE 21-2003