Skip to main content

[I promise] / Weiner, Hannah ; MacLow J ; Giorno J., 1975

 Item
Identifier: CC-00682-698

  • Staff Only
  • Please navigate to collection organization to place requests.

Scope and Contents

The card is addressed to Bernadette Walsh aka Bernadette Mayer who heads The Poetry Project in NYC. Weiner has written on each ruled page of this student style notebook a series of promises some of which can be read in a straight foward fashion, others omitting articles, verbs and nouns, and still others an incorrect tense to the verbs. These errors increase progressively over the course of this book which begins, "I promise to write readible and coherent letters. I promise to write a filthy book." Further, the sizes of the writing are also instructions for printed layout. Finally, scatteed throughout the book is the phrase Big Word, another instruction. During the period of writing this book (one of several hundred in this style), Weiner became a pyschotic recluse living in Manhattan. She emerged from this state about 1977. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Dates

  • Creation: 1975

Creator

Extent

0 See container summary (1 soft cover book (spiral spine) + pages (ink colored, handwriting) + card (ink, handwriting) (70 pages)) ; 21.3 x 18 cm (book) + 8.3 x 14.2 cm (card)

Language of Materials

From the Collection: English

Physical Location

box shelf

Custodial History

The Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, on loan from Ruth and Marvin A. Sackner and the Sackner Family Partnership.

General

General: Title provided by cataloger or by Marvin or Ruth Sackner. Published: New York : [Publisher not identified]. Signed by: Hannah Weiner 7/15/85 (t.c.- page 1); Hannah [Weiner] (l.r.- card). Inscription: Dear Bernadette [Walsh] Just returned from Kathy's [Acker?] exciting reading performance.... Nationality of creator: American. General: About 1 total copy. General: Added by: CONV; updated by: RED.

Repository Details

Part of the The Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry Repository

Contact:
125 W. Washington St.
Main Library
Iowa City Iowa 52242 United States
319-335-5921