This work is a poem loosely based on the works of the "outsider" artist Henry Da
rger (1892-1972), a recluse who toiled for decades at an enormous illustrated no
vel about the adventures of a plucky band of little girls. The Vivians are threa
tened by human tormentors, supernatural demons and cataclysmic storms; their cal
mer moments are passed in Edenic landscapes. Darger traced the figures from comi
c strips, colouring books and other ephemeral sources, filling in the background
s with luscious watercolour.
John Ashbery's "Girls on the Run" creates a simi
lar childlike world of dreamy landscapes, lurking terror and veiled eroticism. I
ts fractured narrative mode almost (but never quite) coalesces into a surrealist
adventure story.
