The Vermont Notebook

In 1975, the American poet John Ashbery published "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror." This difficult book established Ashbery's reputation as a major American poet. The book received the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Ashbery published another book in 1975 which did not receive any accolades. This was a short book, "The Vermont Notebook" published with drawings by the American artist, Joe Brainard (1942 -- 1994) who had been born in Tulsa but had long called New England home. "The Vermont Notebook" was published by Joe Martin and Black Sparrow Press -- Martin would achieve fame as the publisher of Charles Bukowski -- although portions of the book had appeared earlier in little magazines. "The Vermont Notebook" quickly became an obscurity in the stream of Ashbery's poetry. In 2001, this little book was republished in the edition I am reviewing here. In 2008, "The Vermont Notebook" was included in the Library of America's collection of Ashbery's collected poems, 1956 -- 1987, guaranteeing the work's accessibility for future readers. The collaboration between Ashbery and Brainard is pure delight. Ashbery wrote "The Vermont Notebook" while taking a bus trip through New England. The book is written in a free-flow spontaneous style, a type of "spontaneous prose" that Jack Kerouac and other beat writers had attempted some years earlier. The book also has elements of a collage as Ashbery lifed passages and paragraphs from earlier writings by himself and by others. The several paragraphs at the end of the book, for example, which discuss conservation efforts at the Marine Ecology Station in Marco, Maine, are taken from an article titled "Fishing improves at Marco." The book flits from one subject to another with lightness, wit, and free association. It begins with a simple reference to "The climate, the cities, the houses, the streets, the stores, lights,people." It then proceeds with increasingly long lists of places, scenes, businesses, people, games, crimes, and other things and activities that Ashbery loosely associates with New England. It is Walt Whitman but with an airy touch. This is followed by musings of different subjects, with no rigorously logical order, from Ashbery comparing himself to "a dump", to ruminations on Charles Ives, to travel, nature, small towns, shopping malls,love, sex, a poodle parlor, nature, suburbia, cigarettes, postcards to friends and much else. The work includes a short poem called "The Fairies Song" which captures much of the feel of the volume. It concludes: "We dance on hills above the wind And leave our footsteps there behind. We raise their tomatoes. The clear water in the chipped basin reflects it all: A spoiled life, alive, and streaming with light." Joe Brainard's drawings, which appear on almost every page are the perfect complement to Asbery's musings. In their simple and frequently prosaic character, Brainard offers an earthy commentary on Ashbery'