December 23rd, 2009 / 6:37 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Blake Butler—
If one were going to have a ‘John Ashbery 101’ course, what would be the syllabus? I want to dig, and am not sure where to start, and don’t really just want to pick up the Selected. Flow Chart I recall being compelled by, as well as Three Poems (I believe it was in the McSweeney’s issue that Justin edited that someone talked about a writing assignment from Donald Barthelme being “get a bottle of wine, a copy of Three Poems, and write four pages in an evening.”). Anyway, help?
Yeah, that’s from Tracy Daugherty’s contribution to the McSw issue, which was drawn from his biography of Don. And yeah, the assignment is pretty much as you remember it, though you have to remember how new Ashbery was then–or at least how novel his work would have seemed to a student of DB’s at that time. You’re probably too familiar with Ashbery already, in reputation if nothing else, to be quite as surprised, besides which you’re generally well-read in so much of what came after him. So I don’t think you can expect to really be blindsided, but there’s still plenty about him to enjoy.
I really like The Mooring of Starting Out, which is the first five books in one volume. Three Poems is the last book in there- it also has Double Dream of Spring, and I forget what the others are. Since I read that one, I’ve made a point of picking up a random Ashbery volume every so often, and just messing around in it. I think the biggest mistake people make with him–I used to do this–is trying to decode or parse it. It’s better to just relax and sort of drift in his current. I used to read him until he unhinged my brain a little, and then write these very imitate-y poems just to see how it felt. It felt fun, is what.
Yeah, that’s from Tracy Daugherty’s contribution to the McSw issue, which was drawn from his biography of Don. And yeah, the assignment is pretty much as you remember it, though you have to remember how new Ashbery was then–or at least how novel his work would have seemed to a student of DB’s at that time. You’re probably too familiar with Ashbery already, in reputation if nothing else, to be quite as surprised, besides which you’re generally well-read in so much of what came after him. So I don’t think you can expect to really be blindsided, but there’s still plenty about him to enjoy.
I really like The Mooring of Starting Out, which is the first five books in one volume. Three Poems is the last book in there- it also has Double Dream of Spring, and I forget what the others are. Since I read that one, I’ve made a point of picking up a random Ashbery volume every so often, and just messing around in it. I think the biggest mistake people make with him–I used to do this–is trying to decode or parse it. It’s better to just relax and sort of drift in his current. I used to read him until he unhinged my brain a little, and then write these very imitate-y poems just to see how it felt. It felt fun, is what.
Nice, five books in a volume seems perfect. I imagine you are right about the effect being different now than then. I’ve actually read almost none of his actual words tho, and it seems I should. So that five in one volume sounds right. Thanks Justin.
Nice, five books in a volume seems perfect. I imagine you are right about the effect being different now than then. I’ve actually read almost none of his actual words tho, and it seems I should. So that five in one volume sounds right. Thanks Justin.
I’m not sure how many books it encompasses, but Notes from the Air is a compilation of “later” Ashbery works. There seem to be a variety of selected works out there.
As far as individual volumes, I’m digging And The Stars Were Shining.
I’m not sure how many books it encompasses, but Notes from the Air is a compilation of “later” Ashbery works. There seem to be a variety of selected works out there.
As far as individual volumes, I’m digging And The Stars Were Shining.
Blake, my recommendation to new Ashbery readers is always to start with Where Shall I Wander. It’s a more accessible Ashbery but loses none of the bittersweet fireworks for that. I almost feel like it’s a late intro to Ashbery or something. I’d also recommend Girls on the Run which is a long poem he wrote about the art of Henry Darger. It’s beautiful. Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror is another staple. Besides that, totally agree with Justin and Nate. And The Stars Were Shining happens to be my single favourite book of poems of his. And Mooring is great too, especially – in terms of the internal manifesto and structure of his art – The Tennis Court Oath.
Blake, my recommendation to new Ashbery readers is always to start with Where Shall I Wander. It’s a more accessible Ashbery but loses none of the bittersweet fireworks for that. I almost feel like it’s a late intro to Ashbery or something. I’d also recommend Girls on the Run which is a long poem he wrote about the art of Henry Darger. It’s beautiful. Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror is another staple. Besides that, totally agree with Justin and Nate. And The Stars Were Shining happens to be my single favourite book of poems of his. And Mooring is great too, especially – in terms of the internal manifesto and structure of his art – The Tennis Court Oath.
Get more out of life and read A NEST OF NINNIES by Ashbery and James Schuyler. It’s a brilliant comic novel and so deadpan funny your mouth will fall open.
“I don’t know what you’re keeping in that icebox, but it makes everything tastes funny.”
Get more out of life and read A NEST OF NINNIES by Ashbery and James Schuyler. It’s a brilliant comic novel and so deadpan funny your mouth will fall open.
“I don’t know what you’re keeping in that icebox, but it makes everything tastes funny.”
I’d say The Tennis Court Oath and Three Poems, both of which are in The Mooring of Starting Out, so you might as well go there.
I wouldn’t recommend Girls on the Run or Flow Chart for a 101 course.
People often forget about Ashbery the critic and essayist, which is a shame. The Selected Prose, Other Traditions (his Norton lectures at Harvard), and Reported Sightings (his collected art criticism) can and should be read alongside the poetry — his own writings on other writers and artists elucidate his poetic process better than anyone I’m aware of.
(I still haven’t read the novel he co-wrote with James Schuyler, A Nest of Ninnies, but I think Dalkey recently re-published it.)
I’d say The Tennis Court Oath and Three Poems, both of which are in The Mooring of Starting Out, so you might as well go there.
I wouldn’t recommend Girls on the Run or Flow Chart for a 101 course.
People often forget about Ashbery the critic and essayist, which is a shame. The Selected Prose, Other Traditions (his Norton lectures at Harvard), and Reported Sightings (his collected art criticism) can and should be read alongside the poetry — his own writings on other writers and artists elucidate his poetic process better than anyone I’m aware of.
(I still haven’t read the novel he co-wrote with James Schuyler, A Nest of Ninnies, but I think Dalkey recently re-published it.)
At the risk of sounding something (Blake, this is uncanny, first the Bernhard mindread which I still haven’t told you about, and now I had somehow missed your list of 15 FIGURES with the attendant Ashbery chatter and just an hour ago was thinking of building an Ashbery tower on this very site), I’ll just say this for now: Notes from the Air is great, but Selected (picks up from where the earlier Selected leaves off) ((as are, echoing everyone else, the individual volumes mentioned, which you’re right to ask after: for me, it was Wakefulness)) and Mooring is a natural dock and can be read in a sitting, carrying you along like Flow Chart. But if you’re going to invest in a book of bread, you wouldn’t go wrong to just bathe in the Library of America Collected that came out last year, which gives you the first dozen, plus countless uncollected. I have a lot more to say about this, and am curious to hear where others send you. Ashbery’s prose is faultless, too, a little paragraph he wrote on The Robber (wait, have you read The Robber) nine years ago changed everyone around me.
At the risk of sounding something (Blake, this is uncanny, first the Bernhard mindread which I still haven’t told you about, and now I had somehow missed your list of 15 FIGURES with the attendant Ashbery chatter and just an hour ago was thinking of building an Ashbery tower on this very site), I’ll just say this for now: Notes from the Air is great, but Selected (picks up from where the earlier Selected leaves off) ((as are, echoing everyone else, the individual volumes mentioned, which you’re right to ask after: for me, it was Wakefulness)) and Mooring is a natural dock and can be read in a sitting, carrying you along like Flow Chart. But if you’re going to invest in a book of bread, you wouldn’t go wrong to just bathe in the Library of America Collected that came out last year, which gives you the first dozen, plus countless uncollected. I have a lot more to say about this, and am curious to hear where others send you. Ashbery’s prose is faultless, too, a little paragraph he wrote on The Robber (wait, have you read The Robber) nine years ago changed everyone around me.
Another vote for The Tennis Court Oath, or at least “Europe” from the same.
A Nest Of Ninnies, the novel Ashbery co-authored with James Schuyler, is also worth a glance. It is not entirely consequential, either in procedure or outcome, but it does offer additional insight into his sensibilities and concerns, comic and otherwise.
Another vote for The Tennis Court Oath, or at least “Europe” from the same.
A Nest Of Ninnies, the novel Ashbery co-authored with James Schuyler, is also worth a glance. It is not entirely consequential, either in procedure or outcome, but it does offer additional insight into his sensibilities and concerns, comic and otherwise.
The book that really got me into Ashbery was Chinese Whispers, one of his recent books. The extreme goofiness and easygoing sort of humor of his late work allowed me to go back to his early books with an open mind. At first, those books, like Rivers and Mountains, seemed dry and “hard to understand”. But once I saw how he was doing what he was doing, I loved it. That’s pretty much how I learned to read contemporary poetry. Three Poems is definitely a gorgeous, ocean-like unspooling of thought. Houseboat Days, from 1977, contains a few of my favorites, like “Daffy Duck in Hollywood”. And definitely find The Double Dream of Spring, which contains “Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape,” which is a hilarious sestina about Popeye (back before hilarious sestinas were a genre; I wonder if this was the first…)
The book that really got me into Ashbery was Chinese Whispers, one of his recent books. The extreme goofiness and easygoing sort of humor of his late work allowed me to go back to his early books with an open mind. At first, those books, like Rivers and Mountains, seemed dry and “hard to understand”. But once I saw how he was doing what he was doing, I loved it. That’s pretty much how I learned to read contemporary poetry. Three Poems is definitely a gorgeous, ocean-like unspooling of thought. Houseboat Days, from 1977, contains a few of my favorites, like “Daffy Duck in Hollywood”. And definitely find The Double Dream of Spring, which contains “Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape,” which is a hilarious sestina about Popeye (back before hilarious sestinas were a genre; I wonder if this was the first…)
David, I’m in line with you (& Justin & Nate) on this (had been thinking of writing especially about the ekphrastic Ashbery titles you mention) and reserve perhaps my softest spot for And The Stars. Wakefulness was just the second book of poems I *really* read–after Actual Air–tho I go back to the first to poems (Baltimore, title poem) as much as any other late Ashbery. And I might have agreed about Where Shall I Wander is inviting, but now I would be inclined to just point people to Planisphere which seems to me the best (most, west) since (east of / at least) Your Name Here, i.e. in the nine years I’ve been reading everything as soon as I can.
David, I’m in line with you (& Justin & Nate) on this (had been thinking of writing especially about the ekphrastic Ashbery titles you mention) and reserve perhaps my softest spot for And The Stars. Wakefulness was just the second book of poems I *really* read–after Actual Air–tho I go back to the first to poems (Baltimore, title poem) as much as any other late Ashbery. And I might have agreed about Where Shall I Wander is inviting, but now I would be inclined to just point people to Planisphere which seems to me the best (most, west) since (east of / at least) Your Name Here, i.e. in the nine years I’ve been reading everything as soon as I can.
I see I’ve already used a phrase I don’t like seeing, “late” as applied to a living writer: I knew I shouldn’t start writing about Ashbery…
I see I’ve already used a phrase I don’t like seeing, “late” as applied to a living writer: I knew I shouldn’t start writing about Ashbery…
(as in ^the work^ of a living writer)
(as in ^the work^ of a living writer)
I’m past risk: they did and it will make evereything taste funny. Agreed about the essays.
I’m past risk: they did and it will make evereything taste funny. Agreed about the essays.
damn. i guess i have a lot of ashbery reading to do. which is exciting. thanks to everyone.
damn. i guess i have a lot of ashbery reading to do. which is exciting. thanks to everyone.
Dalkey did, that is, and Slowstudies (I would like to echo “Europe”) has it about right, tho I would place it closer to the Topp assessment.
Dalkey did, that is, and Slowstudies (I would like to echo “Europe”) has it about right, tho I would place it closer to the Topp assessment.
perhaps 101 course framing is bad. it’s for me, not a class, so i guess i want to get into the ‘real dirty good’ shit immediately. if that changes anything.
perhaps 101 course framing is bad. it’s for me, not a class, so i guess i want to get into the ‘real dirty good’ shit immediately. if that changes anything.
ok, my vote for the ‘real dirty good’ shit is And the Stars… but it’s probably contentious. it does have my favourite ashbery poem ever in it however, which I’ll stand or fall on as a winner in itself:
The Improvement
Is that where it happens?
Only yesterday when I came back, I had this
diaphanous disaffection for this room, for spaces,
for the whole sky and whatever lies beyond.
I felt the eggplant, then the rhubarb.
Nothing seems strong enough for
this life to manage, that sees beyond
into particles forming some kind of entity—
so we get dressed kindly, crazy at the moment.
A life of afterwords begins.
We never live long enough in our lives
to know what today is like.
Shards, smiling beaches,
abandon us somehow even as we converse with them.
And the leopard is transparent, like iced tea.
I wake up, my face pressed
in the dewy mess of a dream. It mattered,
because of the dream, and because dreams are by nature sad
even when there’s a lot of exclaiming and beating
as there was in this one. I want the openness
of the dream turned inside out, exploded
into pieces of meaning by its own unasked questions,
beyond the calculations of heaven. Then the larkspur
would don its own disproportionate weight,
and trees return to the starting gate.
See, our lips bend.
ok, my vote for the ‘real dirty good’ shit is And the Stars… but it’s probably contentious. it does have my favourite ashbery poem ever in it however, which I’ll stand or fall on as a winner in itself:
The Improvement
Is that where it happens?
Only yesterday when I came back, I had this
diaphanous disaffection for this room, for spaces,
for the whole sky and whatever lies beyond.
I felt the eggplant, then the rhubarb.
Nothing seems strong enough for
this life to manage, that sees beyond
into particles forming some kind of entity—
so we get dressed kindly, crazy at the moment.
A life of afterwords begins.
We never live long enough in our lives
to know what today is like.
Shards, smiling beaches,
abandon us somehow even as we converse with them.
And the leopard is transparent, like iced tea.
I wake up, my face pressed
in the dewy mess of a dream. It mattered,
because of the dream, and because dreams are by nature sad
even when there’s a lot of exclaiming and beating
as there was in this one. I want the openness
of the dream turned inside out, exploded
into pieces of meaning by its own unasked questions,
beyond the calculations of heaven. Then the larkspur
would don its own disproportionate weight,
and trees return to the starting gate.
See, our lips bend.
Nathaniel, I haven’t read Planisphere yet, it’s an Xmas present, busting even more now, if it’s the best since Your Name Here. And the Stars is so so good.
Nathaniel, I haven’t read Planisphere yet, it’s an Xmas present, busting even more now, if it’s the best since Your Name Here. And the Stars is so so good.
His translation work is interesting as well, especially when trying to frame his poetry. I’m thinking most notably his translations of Giorgio de Chirico’s ‘Hebdomeros’ and various bits of Raymond Roussel. Along the same line, his essays/introductions are great as well.
His translation work is interesting as well, especially when trying to frame his poetry. I’m thinking most notably his translations of Giorgio de Chirico’s ‘Hebdomeros’ and various bits of Raymond Roussel. Along the same line, his essays/introductions are great as well.
Focus on the sestina, I say. Assign sestina-writing to them.
Focus on the sestina, I say. Assign sestina-writing to them.
On second thought–
Just assign them the Library of America collected:
http://www.loa.org/volume.jsp?RequestID=291
And find your way out.
On second thought–
Just assign them the Library of America collected:
http://www.loa.org/volume.jsp?RequestID=291
And find your way out.
I don’t think Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror hasn’t yet been mentioned. I still read that often. And Houseboat Days.
If you’re teaching the poem “The Instruction Manual” is a place to start.
Here’s Dara Wier’s tribute to the poem – http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/the_best_american_poetry/2009/09/why-typing-john-ashberys-the-instruction-manual-is-a-good-thing-1.html
I don’t think Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror hasn’t yet been mentioned. I still read that often. And Houseboat Days.
If you’re teaching the poem “The Instruction Manual” is a place to start.
Here’s Dara Wier’s tribute to the poem – http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/the_best_american_poetry/2009/09/why-typing-john-ashberys-the-instruction-manual-is-a-good-thing-1.html
I agree with Brian about Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror and Houseboat Days.
I do not recommend any of the Selected Poems routes for reading Ashbery. Nor do I recommend The Mooring of Starting Out as an introduction. I get the most pleasure out of Ashbery’s poems when I spend time with an individual volume. (Granted, a lot of seminal Ashbery books are out of print, and collections like Mooring are supposed to remedy that, but looking for used copies of Ashbery books is great sport, and there’s always the library, where you can get your hands on first-edition artifacts.) Each of his books is a place, and the collections are disorienting. They also encourage you to move too quickly through the poems and “finish the book.” There is no finishing the book with Ashbery, there is only visiting and revisiting the names of places in his poems.
My introduction to Ashbery was Self-Portrait. I was baffled but intrigued by his poetry, so one summer when I was writing for a travel guide, I took only that book with me to Germany for two months. I read the book over and over until I recognized its landscape, until my sense of Ashbery’s version of sense coincided enough that I could stop worrying about what I wasn’t getting and just enjoy his language.
I don’t think it’s as difficult as all that, though. I’m sure you know what it’s like to let a book happen to you instead of trying to dissect and diagram the meaning of what you’re reading. Ashbery’s poetry resists that approach, and my summer with Self-Portrait was a way to break the close-reading imperative I’d learned in college (I was a 21 or 22 year old English major at the time).
Start with those two books (Self-Portrait was my favorite for years, until I decided I like Houseboat Days even more). Take your time, enjoy the language play and humor, and let the subtle shifts in tone (between and within poems) guide you, rather than looking for a narrative or argument.
Three Poems is great, but I don’t recommend reading it straight through, especially as an intro to Ashbery. At some point I read an interview or something with him where he said you can read Three Poems the way you watch television with a remote control in your hand.
I’m also a big fan of Girls on the Run, but I’d save that for later, after you’re more familiar with his work, otherwise you might end up slogging through a delightful book.
Planisphere is great too. Save it for later.
–JJ
I agree with Brian about Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror and Houseboat Days.
I do not recommend any of the Selected Poems routes for reading Ashbery. Nor do I recommend The Mooring of Starting Out as an introduction. I get the most pleasure out of Ashbery’s poems when I spend time with an individual volume. (Granted, a lot of seminal Ashbery books are out of print, and collections like Mooring are supposed to remedy that, but looking for used copies of Ashbery books is great sport, and there’s always the library, where you can get your hands on first-edition artifacts.) Each of his books is a place, and the collections are disorienting. They also encourage you to move too quickly through the poems and “finish the book.” There is no finishing the book with Ashbery, there is only visiting and revisiting the names of places in his poems.
My introduction to Ashbery was Self-Portrait. I was baffled but intrigued by his poetry, so one summer when I was writing for a travel guide, I took only that book with me to Germany for two months. I read the book over and over until I recognized its landscape, until my sense of Ashbery’s version of sense coincided enough that I could stop worrying about what I wasn’t getting and just enjoy his language.
I don’t think it’s as difficult as all that, though. I’m sure you know what it’s like to let a book happen to you instead of trying to dissect and diagram the meaning of what you’re reading. Ashbery’s poetry resists that approach, and my summer with Self-Portrait was a way to break the close-reading imperative I’d learned in college (I was a 21 or 22 year old English major at the time).
Start with those two books (Self-Portrait was my favorite for years, until I decided I like Houseboat Days even more). Take your time, enjoy the language play and humor, and let the subtle shifts in tone (between and within poems) guide you, rather than looking for a narrative or argument.
Three Poems is great, but I don’t recommend reading it straight through, especially as an intro to Ashbery. At some point I read an interview or something with him where he said you can read Three Poems the way you watch television with a remote control in your hand.
I’m also a big fan of Girls on the Run, but I’d save that for later, after you’re more familiar with his work, otherwise you might end up slogging through a delightful book.
Planisphere is great too. Save it for later.
–JJ
He may not be your style, but in Harold Bloom’s early books he performs a fabulous explication of Ashbury’s more popular poems. His breakdown of “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” is the only one I’ve read that makes any sense. I think it’s in Map of Misreading, or maybe in Agon. One of those two.
My favorite Ashbury poem is in Hotel Lautreamont and starts with a line that goes like this: “The cannons faced east…”
He may not be your style, but in Harold Bloom’s early books he performs a fabulous explication of Ashbury’s more popular poems. His breakdown of “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror” is the only one I’ve read that makes any sense. I think it’s in Map of Misreading, or maybe in Agon. One of those two.
My favorite Ashbury poem is in Hotel Lautreamont and starts with a line that goes like this: “The cannons faced east…”
I just mispelled Ashbery’s name twice in one post.
I just mispelled Ashbery’s name twice in one post.
Glad to see someone recommending the prose.
Glad to see someone recommending the prose.
I’m seconding–possibly thirding?–Girls on the Run & And the Stars Were Shining, both of which are beautiful.
Happy Xmas, kids!
I’m seconding–possibly thirding?–Girls on the Run & And the Stars Were Shining, both of which are beautiful.
Happy Xmas, kids!