Pulitzer Prize winning poet, who’s ground-breaking work has been a major influence for almost any poet writing in the 20th century. His poems are famously difficult; they often allude a fixed meaning and – as the Poetry Foundation puts it – “challenge [their] readers to discard all presumptions about the aims, themes, and stylistic scaffolding of verse in favour of a literature that reflects upon the limits of language and the volatility of consciousness.”
Loads has been said and written about him, and there could be little left for me to say. Although I have to admit, I particularly like Stephen Koch’s characterisation of Ashbery in the New York Times Book Review who described Ashbery’s voice as
"a hushed, simultaneously incomprehensible and intelligent whisper with a weird pulsating rhythm that fluctuates like a wave between peaks of sharp clarity and watery droughts of obscurity and languor.”I leave you to explore Ashbery and his work yourselves.
My poetic response this week only uses a few cues from Ashbery’s poem “The Skaters”. The quoted lines (in italics) served as a starting point for my own thoughts in these post-General-Election days in Scotland.
Links:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-ashbery
http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/john-ashbery
http://jacketmagazine.com/02/index.shtml (John Ashbery special)
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/ashbery/
http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Ashbery.php
~ - ~
melting point
starting halfway amid Skaters
on icy surface with bruised knees
I recollect myself
wondering
while the rain drops roll down
the metal body
of the mint green bicycle in our living room
my hair is still wet
tangled
on a Scottish melting spring day
mid May clouds
crowding the bay window
with the past poster tape stains
holding on
dirty grey transparency as the void
comes clear
the Sunday after the Thursday
after the Friday which will last another 5 years
me just a silly bystander
voiceless immigrant reader
strapped to the sofa seat
while John talks about snowflakes piling
Mild effects are the result.
I see them
microscopic crystal formations floating weightlessly
magnificent symbolic now
misty swirls biting our cheeks in the gale
they come in all kinds of colours
never just the pure white ones
the wind coming up from the south
pushing them against our faces
we try and catch them
mere water on touchdown every time
or after all - ?
in the shade beyond the border
a stubborn pileup
a slippery slope
We are a part of some system, thinks he.
pools on the carpet
gathering
a flat screen television conversation loud
location location aspiration
reform reform
I stare motionless
chain reaction
what was the meaning of - again
innovation
inspiration
invitation
indignation
indirection
inreaction … ?
good for business is good for us all certainly
little room for doubt in times like these
in water weather
my wrinkly hands and sodden feet
in this liquid language frantically paddling
against each
syllable
life threatening
“au”/”ste”
/”ri”/
”ty”
down to the letter
from s w 1 a
first in the country
x like avalanche
the tide which pulled it all away
I wring them all out now
every sheet with ink running
waters rising
Placed squarely in front of his dilemma.
well.
No comments:
Post a Comment