The New York School
by Joseph Bradshaw

The New York School, a new volume of poetry and prose by Joseph Bradshaw, contradicts and redeems, finds meaning in shame, references history (of art and poetics) but with a double-edged sword. Situated in a place of sharp wit and lucid doubt, it stands up both for failure and pleasure—and it will make you fall over with laughter. 'The New York School is, like any book that's worth reading, written only for the dead. And we are so dead. Genet proposed that Giacometti's statues should be offered to the dead, that they be buried. This book too should be buried and we should never laugh again once we bury it. We should piss on it, and where we buried it we should join hands instead of grasping our dying hearts as we do it. This book gives good shame, like funeral fantasies. Even the most immovable among us will be moved by real demons, moved by and to both nonexistence and its total refusal, moved also to tell you I would die for you all and my death would be brought to you by this book.' —Jane Gregory

Joseph Bradshaw was born in Idaho. He was a member of the Spare Room collective in Portland, Oregon, as well as an editor for FO(A)RM Magazine. He graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 2008 and has taught at Portland State University, Pacific Northwest College of Art, the School of Visual Arts, and Tulane University in New Orleans. In 2013 he curated the Lesley Flint Presents reading series at Berl's Poetry Shop, and in 2014 he was a writer-in-residence for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's Process Space program.