John Ashbery (1927–2017)

This is something I read as a stretching my mind sort of exercise. I knew going in that the whole surrealist/post-modern style usually doesn't interest me, but he's a very prominent poet who I'd never read until now, so I settled in to try and connect with this. I can admire the technical aspect of it, however, one of the things I read poetry for in the first place is an emotional connection that pulls me into what the poet is saying. The gap on that personal level is simply too big here. I have no doubt that there are people who are intensely moved by some of these poems, but none of them really hit home for me, I was simply examining them from a distance without ever feeling connected. So I'm sure this deserves better on technical merit, but my ratings tend to be based on the purely subjective and personal, so I had to go with two stars as it was ultimately not what I want out of an experience. No regrets, but no repeats.… (más)

HOTEL LAUTREAMONT | read 2021-02

Poems collected in "HL" are absurdist, dream-infused. Most are inscrutable: I wonder why the title. I pick up no particular theme or even tone, and primarily read to appreciate specific phrases or images, and the wordplay. There are many puns, though not the variety which prompt laughter, rather bemusement or a question as to why it was used. (And curious if they made the copyediting slower, with readers mistakenly thinking any were errors. I wonder, too, if Ashbery would find that amusing.)

Part of my attraction for Ashbery's verse (despite not achieving a strong sense of understanding it) is the many points of intersection in interests: film (Guy Maddine, specifically); the sense that literature was missing the potential of collage (a la WSB); his efforts in producing stageplays alongside Edward Gorey. (Cover design for the 1992 Knopf edition of Lautreamont was a piece by Joseph Cornell.) Strong pointers suggesting that if we both value those things, I should pay attention to other things he's interested in, even if not immediately apparent why.

Reading the verse collected here + random selections from "Uncollected Poems" (such as "Hoboken") + chronology, I found the LOA description quite apt to my experience: colloquial yet dream-like and specific, not easy to grasp yet scans easily.

Ashbery’s poetry challenges its readers to discard all presumptions about the aims, themes, and stylistic scaffolding of verse in favor of a literature that reflects upon the limits of language and the volatility of consciousness. - Poetry Foundation biographical blurb, and I saw that in what I read.

to read:
FLOW CHART
AND THE STARS WERE SHINING
CAN YOU HEAR, BIRD
WAKEFULNESS
GIRLS ON THE RUN
YOUR NAME HERE
UNCOLLECTED POEMS… (más)