Proper Name & Other Stories

by Bernadette Mayer

Proper Name collects for the first time the inimitable stories of Bernadette Mayer―"one of the most original writers of her generation" ( The Washington Post ). The nineteen narratives of Proper Name include "My Excellent Novel," "Ice Cube Epigrams," " How Carefully Do We Tend?" and "Juan Gave Nora a Pomegranate." Mayer's structural inventions are terrific and unique. As Fanny Howe remarked in The American Book Review , "In a language made up of idiom and lyricism, Mayer cancels the boundaries between prose and poetry."

152 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1996

About the author

Bernadette Mayer (born May 12, 1945) is an American poet, writer, and visual artist associated with both the Language poets and the New York School. Mayer's record-keeping and use of stream-of-consciousness narrative are two trademarks of her writing, though she is also known for her work with form and mythology. In addition to the influence of her textual-visual art and journal-keeping, Mayer's poetry is widely acknowledged as some of the first to speak accurately and honestly about the experience of motherhood. Mayer edited the journal 0 TO 9 with Vito Acconci, and, until 1983, United Artists books and magazines with Lewis Warsh. Mayer taught at the New School for Social Research, where she earned her degree in 1967, and, during the 1970s, she led a number of workshops at the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in New York. From 1980 to 1984, Mayer served as director of the Poetry Project, and her influence in the contemporary avant-garde is felt widely, with writers like Kathy Acker, Charles Bernstein, John Giorno, and Anne Waldman having sat in on her workshops.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sister Mary Magdalena, oh stations of the cross how severe it is to be tortured and nailed, please raise your hand if you are willing to suffer and die for your faith and what do you think of Joe McCarthy, hide under your desks when the bomb falls, we will teach you how, and what do you think of General MacArthur and the painting of the blue boy and all that we have not taught you? Please take the milk and distribute it since you're so smart, oh there's some modesses I save them in case any of the girls get their periods, I put them in the drawer, your sister is so much smarter than you are and you are so much smarter than she, since your blouse is ironed, even though you dont have a fresh blouse every day and you are smart you can sit in the front row and help distribute the milk, you must go to mass during lent every morning before school without eating beforehand so you can receive holy communion at 5:30am, you must walk there alone then school will begin, you must not be hungry you must not notice that Janice already has breasts and when she pledges allegiance she puts her right hand right on her left breast, we all laugh about it, since you are so smart you must take over when I have to leave the the room, you must put all the names of the boys who are bad on the blackboard in order: Eugene LeRock, James Noeth, John Hoefferle. Here is another new child from Germany, she cant speak English, we must help her alot, German is not a good language to speak in this world. I love you, said Sister Roseanna, please let me love you, you are the only person who understands me and now I will tell you all about my life and my feelings. I hate you, said Sister Teresa, come with me to Seton Hall, I require a lay companion to go to my classes, to travel with me.

[Stephanie]

Maybe this wasn't the best introduction to Bernadette Mayer. I picked it up at the library because it was short and New Directions has a knack for publishing unusual works.
I quickly realized this is not my cup of tea. The short stories are very, er, conceptual. My expectations of "making sense" were cornered and thrown out the window. How things were said are far more important than what is said--like Lispector at her most post-modern but even more dizzyingly, "What, you think I'm writing for you to understand?" Very playful and avant-gard, but not exactly easy to follow.
Whether because my expectations changed or because she changed styles, I enjoyed the poems in the second half of the book over the short stories. But still, I didn't find the book as a whole worth puzzling over.