Published by Anxiety Press 2025
Paperback : 52 pages
From the Introduction by Sarah Hajkowski :
Captain Beefheart joins Yamrus’ collection of more than 40 books and nearly 4000 publications in inviting those new to its subject matter. Over the lip of a kooky kidney bean pool bobbing with references and forgotten wonderfulness is John Yamrus warmly waving. … John Yamrus wants readers to puzzle with him.
Review by Steve Froy
Trout Mask Replica is one of those albums that seems to inspire people to want to write about it, whether to say how good it is, how bad they think it is or how they came to see the clarity through what they originally thought to be a chaotic mess.
I think you can have a good idea of how these writings would go but in this instance I found it difficult to get a grip on John Yamrus’s take. It felt to me at first that Trout Mask was being treated as incidental to its own story. That was, perhaps, my blinkered view of what I was expecting. Thankfully the author did give me a nudge in the right direction when he told me :
Personally, I see that book as a commentary on sticking with an artistic vision…on staying the course no matter what the outside world says…it applies to Beefheart…to Trout Mask…and also to me, as I’ve had to ride my own road with my very minimalistic poems that are more snapshots of a moment in time rather than a tale with a beginning, middle and end.
And he made me feel not quite so dim by adding :
The fact that you find it difficult to get a grip on the book makes me feel like in some crazy way I succeeded at least a little bit.
This is a very slight book (in size) but do not be deceived into thinking that there’s not much content. There’s a lot to think about here, Yamrus offers seemingly random observations but allows the reader to run with them and to form your own conclusions.
It is not a dissection of the album or a close examination of its contents. Yamrus thinks that enough has been written about the ‘how’ of the album but not much about the ‘why’ which is probably quite true. Although Trout Mask is the central thread of the book he uses it as a jumping off point for various musings on following an artistic vision, of being ‘other’. This involves an odd assortment of characters – among whom are John Coltrane, Papa John Creach, Norman Mailer, Marcel Duchamp and a random guy he knew called Tony.
It’s probably churlish to criticise a book for not being what you expected but I had hoped that Yamrus would cast his poetic eye over Don’s lyrics. I would be interested to hear a minimalist’s take on them as Don is anything but … anyway, maybe another day, another book!
However, he does describe Trout Mask in several wonderful ways :
This whole album is an inside joke told to an empty room. It’s also a shout of uncontrolled joy.
[It] is a great big black hole that chews up everything in its path … chews things up and spits them out again, with them looking, feeling and acting totally different. I think their plan was to stir the pot. They stirred the pot.
Yamrus does that too with his book, stirring the pot, he’s also that bit of grit in the vaseline, irritating you until you see what he’s telling you.
Give it a read. It will not take you long but it’ll be time well spent.
I came for the Beefheart book but I stayed for the John Yamrus poetry.