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The Vermont Notebook
Originally published by Black Sparrow Press in 1975, and long out of print, The Vermont Notebook combines the writing of the American master John Ashbery with the ink drawings of Joe Brainard (1942-1994). This is Ashbery at his wacky best, from long lists that seem to make some sense, to short lists that seem to make no sense, to made-up diary entries. Here we find Joe Brainard's version of Americana. Combined, there is a wonderful innocence to this book that is found in the work of both of these artists. Joe Brainard's popularity is soaring to new heights as the traveling retrospective of his career captivates museum-goers throughout the United States, and this publication will be a valuable addition to the available publications of his work.
108 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
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About the author
John Ashbery
297 books481 followersFormal experimentation and connection to visual art of noted American poet John Ashbery of the original writers of New York School won a Pulitzer Prize for
Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror
(1975).
From Harvard and Columbia, John Ashbery earned degrees, and he traveled of James William Fulbright to France in 1955. He published more than twenty best known collections, most recently A Worldly Country (2007). Wystan Hugh Auden selected early Some Trees for the younger series of Elihu Yale, and he later obtained the major national book award and the critics circle. He served as executive editor of Art News and as the critic for magazine and Newsweek. A member of the academies of letters and sciences, he served as chancellor from 1988 to 1999. He received many awards internationally and fellowships of John Simon Guggenheim and John Donald MacArthur from 1985 to 1990. People translated his work into more than twenty languages. He lived and from 1990 served as the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. professor of languages and literature at Bard college.
From Harvard and Columbia, John Ashbery earned degrees, and he traveled of James William Fulbright to France in 1955. He published more than twenty best known collections, most recently A Worldly Country (2007). Wystan Hugh Auden selected early Some Trees for the younger series of Elihu Yale, and he later obtained the major national book award and the critics circle. He served as executive editor of Art News and as the critic for magazine and Newsweek. A member of the academies of letters and sciences, he served as chancellor from 1988 to 1999. He received many awards internationally and fellowships of John Simon Guggenheim and John Donald MacArthur from 1985 to 1990. People translated his work into more than twenty languages. He lived and from 1990 served as the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. professor of languages and literature at Bard college.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
April 23, 2021
Ashbery And Brainard
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's fancy. Brainard gives the reader simple rural scenes, the sun and the rain, farms, items of old clothes, the poodle, a naked man, lovers kissing. Besides flowers, fish, fishermen, and farms, Brainard offers a drawing of a commode and of the door to a men's room. Brainard's drawings and Ashbery's text intertwine to create a work of whimsy and gaiety.
Many readers have difficulty with Ashbery's "Self-Portrait" and the other volumes of poetry for which he is famous. But it is difficult to avoid being enchanted by this little, formerly obscure little book. In its deftness and lightness of touch, together with Brainard's drawings, this book is an accessible introduction to Ashbery and his art, even for readers who are puzzled by the bulk of his other poetry.
Robin Friedman
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's fancy. Brainard gives the reader simple rural scenes, the sun and the rain, farms, items of old clothes, the poodle, a naked man, lovers kissing. Besides flowers, fish, fishermen, and farms, Brainard offers a drawing of a commode and of the door to a men's room. Brainard's drawings and Ashbery's text intertwine to create a work of whimsy and gaiety.
Many readers have difficulty with Ashbery's "Self-Portrait" and the other volumes of poetry for which he is famous. But it is difficult to avoid being enchanted by this little, formerly obscure little book. In its deftness and lightness of touch, together with Brainard's drawings, this book is an accessible introduction to Ashbery and his art, even for readers who are puzzled by the bulk of his other poetry.
Robin Friedman
November 16, 2017
According to another reviewer, The Vermont Notebook is a "vanity project." I can understand why someone might think this. Despite the complimentary function of Joe Brainard's illustrations, there's something epiphenomenal about them. And indeed, John Ashbery had finished the poem before sending it off to Brainard—a decision which frustrated the possibility for any genuine inter-artist dialogue. As a result, The Vermont Notebook isn't a work of interdisciplinary art so much as a simple poetry book with pictures. So perhaps there's a sense of lost opportunity here.
But what about the poem itself? Ashbery writes in his experimental vein, which means that the work is challenging and bizarre. And this in turn means that I don't purport to have understood even half of it. Nevertheless, I feel that Ashbery tends to oscillate rather unevenly between Steinian syntactic mindfuckery and good old New York School banality (e.g., the first thirty pages of the poem are comprised of various lists). To say it another way, The Vermont Notebook seems to exemplify that strange and oxymoronic species of art: the conventional avant-garde.
Still, Ashbery succeeds in laying down a few gems, such as the following passage (my personal favourite):
If this doesn't float your boat, I doubt the rest of The Vermont Notebook will. But all in all, it's a curious work, even if it's not an essential one.
But what about the poem itself? Ashbery writes in his experimental vein, which means that the work is challenging and bizarre. And this in turn means that I don't purport to have understood even half of it. Nevertheless, I feel that Ashbery tends to oscillate rather unevenly between Steinian syntactic mindfuckery and good old New York School banality (e.g., the first thirty pages of the poem are comprised of various lists). To say it another way, The Vermont Notebook seems to exemplify that strange and oxymoronic species of art: the conventional avant-garde.
Still, Ashbery succeeds in laying down a few gems, such as the following passage (my personal favourite):
His sideburns. Problem about them. He liked them. They made him feel good. But nobody else did. They were too polite to say anything. But he knew they didn't like them. Still, he felt good, in an unusual sense of the word "good," as in "good night."
If this doesn't float your boat, I doubt the rest of The Vermont Notebook will. But all in all, it's a curious work, even if it's not an essential one.
Read
April 14, 2025"The silver-painted flagpole in its concrete base surrounded by portulacas, the flag itself straining in the incredibly strong breeze, are signposts toward an infinity of wavering susceptible variables, if one but knew how to read them aright."
January 19, 2026
I was very disappointed by this book. It was less poetry and poetic prose and more poetic rambling. Often just regular rambling. I liked the interlude about fish conservation in Florida. I didn’t really get all the lists.
April 12, 2016
Strange book for Ashbery, but I liked it...it's doubly strange since his "Self Portrait" came out the same year. It's difficult to compare to other books of his, but it was a pleasure to see him break away from his usual, uber-refined, yet playful, lexical fireworks, and just "go for it"... Also mentionable: the rhythms in the "lists" of words/objects/people are interesting in their own right (something to pay attention to as I don't believe these lists were fully aleatoric in composition, though this is just a hunch).
Nice pairings with Brainard's imagery as well.
Nice pairings with Brainard's imagery as well.
July 31, 2007
I had the Black Sparrow version of this one, and now have the Granary. It is what it appears to be, a journal. Lists, notes to self, some descriptions of things seen, a couple of jokes. Nothing fancy, certainly no "POEMS" as such, but the sense that everything everyday is a poem. Definitive drawings by Joe Brainard, who makes this book worth buying. Beautiful production.
June 4, 2023
Things, copper sky, black trees. Some gracious some indifferent.
The matter is: stones building up under the surface that finally swell and burst out into sunlight. Patient phenomena well. Not really.
- -
There are limpid pools of quiet
Offering themselves to the relaxed curve of a pebble, Baskets of normal occurring, insipid flowering meads,
Wastes of acting out daytime courtesies at night,
Deadfalls of resolution, arks of self-preservation,
Arenas of unused indulgence. Where do we get off The careening spear of rye? The milk meanwhile is soured But it all gets mixed up in your stomach anyway.
The matter is: stones building up under the surface that finally swell and burst out into sunlight. Patient phenomena well. Not really.
- -
There are limpid pools of quiet
Offering themselves to the relaxed curve of a pebble, Baskets of normal occurring, insipid flowering meads,
Wastes of acting out daytime courtesies at night,
Deadfalls of resolution, arks of self-preservation,
Arenas of unused indulgence. Where do we get off The careening spear of rye? The milk meanwhile is soured But it all gets mixed up in your stomach anyway.
February 15, 2019
Lists, post-cards/letters, early examples of "found" poetry, and scattered musings abutting a seemingly random (albeit more consistent) collection of b&w sketches.
It's difficult to imagine Ashbery discarding anything he wrote down during this period - how would he have distinguished between success and failure? How can the reader? It's largely free of cliche I suppose...and perhaps it is all less casual than it appears, but am I really trying to assess this critically? Seems rather beside the point...
It's difficult to imagine Ashbery discarding anything he wrote down during this period - how would he have distinguished between success and failure? How can the reader? It's largely free of cliche I suppose...and perhaps it is all less casual than it appears, but am I really trying to assess this critically? Seems rather beside the point...
Read
August 24, 2022saucy !
definitely not a place to start with JA & I'd say only read it if you have the (first!) collected but I enjoy this lots of found poetry, lists. Oddly, like Perec there's a Zeihitsu element to this too.
A spoiled life, alive, and streaming with light.
It's a combination project I don't know if John is responding to the illustrations or vice versa. But the light, spoiled in life, shines through
definitely not a place to start with JA & I'd say only read it if you have the (first!) collected but I enjoy this lots of found poetry, lists. Oddly, like Perec there's a Zeihitsu element to this too.
A spoiled life, alive, and streaming with light.
It's a combination project I don't know if John is responding to the illustrations or vice versa. But the light, spoiled in life, shines through
November 7, 2019
No one who isn’t named John Ashbery could ever get away with calling this poetry.
June 7, 2007
It's almost entirely just lists of stuff next to pictures, but somehow it works really well.
September 10, 2008
A different Ashbery, very easy.
October 20, 2009
Meh... For those interested, in a list of artists, "Sandra MacPherson" appears between "Kathleen Fraser" and "Anne Sexton."
March 4, 2012
A vanity project of the worst kind. Self-indulgent crap. -cg
February 3, 2014
There are times when you need something that twists on the page. Lists, false diary entries, poem: patter on the page. Engaging, but frivolous.
Read
August 24, 2018Well this was a nice breather between Three Poems and Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror. Postmodern writing runs the risk of triviality head-on and that's all right.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews