“Hurry-hurry to Vermont!”: Joe Brainard’s Rural Refuge

This article considers the many important functions of Joe Brainard’s summer retreat in rural Vermont: as a haven from city life, as an opportunity to spend time with his long-term partner Kenward Elmslie and their mutual artist friends and as a space to fully devote himself to work. Brainard’s representation of his summers in Calais, Vermont, is examined in the context of Scott Herring’s postulate of queer anti-urbanism and of the concepts of queer pastoralism, the homosexual Arcadia and rural idyll. The article argues that Brainard ultimately embraced both the urban and the rural instead of privileging either of them. The analysis draws mainly on Brainard’s autobiographical writings and on Ron Padgett’s Joe: A Memoir of Joe Brainard.