The Vermont Notebook

""Did I know you, split-levels? What it's like to inhabit your dangerous divided spaces with views of celery plantations?"" Long listed on the pages dedicated to ""other books by John Ashbery"" but largely unobtainable, The Vermont Notebook, the poet's wonderful 1975 collaboration with artist Joe Brainard (1942-1994), is finally seeing accessible print. Nearly 50 page-sized pen-and-ink drawings are matched with diary-like prose pieces, pairings that remain offhandedly perfect. (Nov.)