Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork was published by Simon & Schuster in 1976 and is Brautigan’s largest single poetry collection — 131 poems that reflect the shifting mood of the mid-1970s: the counterculture’s dissipation, the onset of disillusionment, and Brautigan’s own growing isolation. The title itself suggests the futility of certain enterprises — you cannot load mercury with a pitchfork; the substance escapes whatever tool you bring to it.
The Poems
The collection is divided into multiple sections and demonstrates Brautigan’s range more fully than any other single volume:
Love poems — still present, still tender, but now marked by loss and failure rather than the hopeful awkwardness of the 1968 poems. Love in Loading Mercury is something that has happened and ended, not something approaching.
Nature poems — Brautigan’s observation of the natural world remains precise and affectionate, but there is a new undertone: the natural world as refuge from human disappointment.
Japan poems — reflecting Brautigan’s growing connection to Japan (he would spend extended periods in Tokyo in the late 1970s and early 1980s). These poems have a different quality — more formal, more influenced by Japanese aesthetics.
Dark poems — the collection includes more poems about death, failure, and emptiness than Brautigan’s earlier work. The darkness that would culminate in his suicide in 1984 is already present as an undertone.
The title poem is characteristic of late Brautigan: an image of impossible labor that is simultaneously funny (who would try to load mercury with a pitchfork?) and devastating (but we do try, and we fail, and we try again).
Context
By 1976, Brautigan’s cultural moment had passed. The counterculture was over; punk was arriving; literary fashion had moved toward minimalism (Carver, Beattie) and away from Brautigan’s whimsy. His books still sold respectably — Simon & Schuster was a major publisher — but the critical establishment had largely dismissed him.
The poems reflect this displacement without self-pity. Brautigan never stopped writing; he never stopped being himself; he simply continued producing work that fewer and fewer people attended to. The late poetry has been substantially reassessed since his death — critics now find in it a depth and darkness that the earlier celebratory work only hinted at.
Collecting Loading Mercury with a Pitchfork
First edition (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1976): Cloth binding with dust jacket.
Identification points:
- Simon & Schuster imprint
- “1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10” number line (first printing includes “1”)
- 150 pages
Market values: Fine copies in dust jacket bring $75–$200. A major publisher at Brautigan’s commercial height.
Signed copies: $200–$500.
The collection’s size (131 poems) makes it the most comprehensive single-volume Brautigan poetry experience, and its darker tone appeals to readers who find the early work too sweet.