Pure Paragraphs
Arranged by Kevin McNamee-Tweed and Bradley King
Published by Happy Apples Press and Dutton
2023
130 pages
1st edition of 130 is sold out
2nd edition is forthcoming September 2023
$12
Pure Paragraphs is a collection of paragraphs by one hundred and thirty artists and writers. Responding to a sort of anti-prompt, the contributors were asked only to bare in mind the basic architecture and function of a paragraph. The book contains a near even split of texts and visual works. Conceived and produced over the course of a month and released on the occasion of Kevin McNamee-Tweed's exhibition at Dutton in New York, the publication carries itself as an loving experiment, at once intimate, improvisational, it is a rowdy convergence.
Contributors:
Aram Saroyan, Kari Cholnoky, Hoa Nguyen, Andrew Cranston, Saj Issa, Micah Lexier, John Yau, Kemar Wynter, Katherine Bradford, Genevra Daley, Cody Tumblin, Kevin McNamee-Tweed, Sterling Allen, Francesca Capone, Lorraine Lupo, Alan Bernheimer, Ryan Davis, Charles Perry, Sarah Reyes, Soumya Netrabile, Maggie Boyd, Helena Deland-McCullagh, Melissa Brown, Mads Lindberg, Dale Smith, Kyle Schlesinger, Antonio Carrau, Lachlan Hinwood, Matthew Feyld, Célia Hay, Claire Oswalt, Mariel Capanna, Matthew Gallager, Clayton Schiff, Chad Etting, Zan de Parry, Carlos Lara, Tamas Panitz, Kelly Clare, Mason Saltarrelli, Nikholis Planck, Manik Raj Nakra, Philip Trussell, Emily Cross, Claire Whitehurst, Barbara Jeane Jenkins, Ricky Yanas, Jim Shrosbree, Sue Hettmansperger, John Bosworth, Jessica Hans, Stefan Marx, Dion James, Sean Downey, Susannah Simpson, Zoe Darsee, Ashley Thomas, Will Owen, Corey Presha, Natalia Gonzalez Martin, Ben Estes, Lauren Luloff, David Schiesser, Sean Ripple, Laurel Farrin, Cammy York, Ted Gahl, Sam Bett, Annabel Lee, rocki swiderski, Jackson Taylor, Matt Phillips, Dan Devening, Josep Maynou, Peter Fagundo, Jonathan Faber, Noam Rappaport, Paul Maziar, Augustus Thompson, Claudia Keep, Brian Scott Campbell, Kimberly English, Jon Greene, Julienne Alexander, Serena Stevens, Matthew F. Fisher, Nora Claire Miller, Sharon Roos, Douglas Degges, Adrienne Greenblatt, Simon Evans, Matthew Winn, Sivan Lavie, Susan White, David Benedikt Wirth, Kathryn Lynch, Stacy Fisher, Wolfgang Voegele, Nicholas Schutzenhofer, Evana Bodiker, Kathleen McShane, Ellie MacGarry, Lauren Moya Ford, Sammy Harkham, Travis Kent, Jenna Bonistalli, Hitomi Shibata, Jake Fagundo, Christian Bischoff, Michael Krueger, Emily Davidson, Stuart Lorimer, Julia Gartrell, Tatiana Ryckman, Hikari Ono, Annabelle Agbo Godeau, Ricardo Passaporte, Ryan Sambol, Leticia Fernández-Fontecha, Dave Bryant, Samuel T. Adams, Bradley King, Sky Glabush, Drew Liverman, Ivanna Baranova, Gyan Shrosbree, Anslem Berrigan, Sunnylyn Thibodeaux
"I was inclined to make this book partially because I just love to read free floating paragraphs. It's a kind of sweet spot for me. Anne Carson's Short Texts and Joe Brainard's writings come to mind. I appreciate the conciseness and the tight narrative arc it presents. It is enough time (thought?) for a little epiphany. Or just a nice meandering thought, or a fragment of a greater whole, or just a wayward arrow of curiosity. It's just simply a metric of language that I love. And, the more I thought about it, and as Bradley [King] and I discussed the project, I came to relate the paragraph to the way I like to make images, narratives, which are abbreviated or cut from a wider cloth; good fragments.
We did our best to cajole something natural out of the contributors with a very loose prompt, very little context, and no explicit link to my work or the exhibition at Dutton, except that it would accompany the show. A friend of the show, as now I like to think of all these folks who gave us something as friends within the context of the publication. That was really a big motivation from the start, to bring people together."
-Kevin McNamee-Tweed
"Gathering and laying alongside so many styles and voices, but still moored by a connection stronger than what could exist in a literary journal, captivates me as a publisher. This book cultivates conversation and community."
-Bradley King