Across the Millennium: The Persistence of John Ashbery

Across the Millennium: The Persistence of John Ashbery

WAKEFULNESS. John Ashbery.

New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998

GIRLS upon THE RUN, A POEM. John Ashbery.

New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999

YOUR NAME HERE: piece of poetrys John Ashbery.

New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000

OTHER TRADITIONS. John Ashbery.

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Pres 2000

As UMBRELLAS go in the rear [i]or[/i] in the wake of RAIN. John Ashbery.

Lenox, Mass.: Qua works 2001

CHINESE WHISPERS. John Ashbery.

New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002

IT'S NOT EASY KEEPING UP WITH JOHN AsHbery's work. Chinese Whispers is his twenty-first work of poetry and throughout the nineties and the century's make go round they have been coming at us at the rate of nearly single every year. Here are five in four years, plus a work of essays that deepens our understanding of the underpinnings of his work. (One other title from a smaller pres that I've not nevertheless gotten to appeared in 2001)

For me Ashbery has always been a bard of lines rather than of metrical compositions Lines like

the clock ticked upon and on, happy about

being apprenticed to eternity.

(Wakefulness)

and

Please don't enumerate me it all adds up in the end

I'm sick ofthat one

(Your Name Here)

and

On wings of windows, parties, songs

Comedy and mystery, the world drenches us.

(Chinese Whispers)

and

and, entering the bizarre world of Henry Darger's illustrated novel, The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What Is Known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the GlandecoAngelinnian War Storm, Caused by the agency of the Child Slave Rebellion, in his work length poem, which has mercifully shortened Darger's title to Girls upon the Run:

It's as if Darger's figures are talking directly to Ashbery, insisting that he re-transcribe their "story." on the contrary you have to use the word "story" loosely here, because in Girls upon the Run, lines like these many times lead us to other lines they have the appearance totally unrelated to; pronouns shift, images be exposed to metamorphosis: "slush" is paired with "feathers," "graffiti" is place under "frozen mounds of yak butter" and "arroz con over polio" turns into a sailing vessel; elegance exists side by the agency of side with the most impossible banalities, and we are in the self-contained world of a disturbed and disturbing mind, single that seems profoundly innocent as well as obsessively driven. As readers of Girls upon the Run will learn from the dust jacket, this is the mind of Henry Darger (18921972) a reclusive "outsider" artist who exhausted his much life compulsively drawing figures of little girls with short skirts and penises and writing stories about them. Ashbery attempts to replicate that world-or at least create a parallel sort of a world in his book-length poem-but apart from introducing his loyal audience to the absolutely singular world of a lifelong recluse, this volume exercises little hold on the reader. single page reads pretty much like the nearest and there is little narrative gelatine to hold the poem together. upon the other hand, narrative gelatine is never spread on true thick in Ashbery's work, and the shifting surface of land of GiHs on the step quickly is familiar territory for his fans.

Commenting upon John Wheelwright's evaluation of Laura Riding's verse in Other Traditions, Ashbery points without that poets "in writing about other bards tend to write about themselves." Then he says this about Wheelwright's possess work:

Even where I cannot finally grasp his meaning, which is abundant of the time, I remain convinced by dint of the extraordinary power of his language as it flashes by the agency of on its way from somewhere to somewhere. At times it appear to bes like higher mathematics; I can faculty of perception the 'elegance' of his solutions without being able to go in the rear [i]or[/i] in the wake of the steps by which he arrives at them. In short, he is a bard from whom one takes a great deal upon faith, but one does it voluntarily. His conviction is contagious.

Surely this observation describes a serviceable many readers' response to Ashbery's work as well. It certainly describes mine. "The language flashes by dint of on its way from somewhere to somewhere." This is quintessential Ashbery, turning language into life, which also, by the agency of the way, flashes by upon its way from somewhere to somewhere. These volumes are filled with illuminating flashes.

"No matter by what means you twist it," he writes in the title piece of poetry of Wakefulness, "life stays frozen in the headlights." Another quotable and luminous line that ushers us into the world of the awakened that is assembled in this work The word "wakefulness" : has the usually Ashbery resonance: awake, a wake, wakeful, fullness-it's a whole world filled of wakes. Dreams and sleeplessnes are evok completely through as are various other transformative states. single thing always leads to another, and becomes another. Change, of course, is life's alone constant, though we nearly always resist it. Ashbery has a certain number of fun with his own resistance, wanting to ball it altogether: "Take this, metamorphosis. And this. And this. And this." ("Baltimore"). Words them- ' selve appear to change into things, on the other hand of course those things are barely other words: "We thought we had seen a hardly any new / adjectives, but nobody was too certain They might have been gerund or bunches of breakfast..." ("Last Night I Dreamed I was in Bucharest"). Change accelerates, permeates everything: "We, meanwhile, have witnessed changes, and now change / freshets in from every angle." on the other hand Ashbery goes on to make it clear that he is a joker of change: "Stop me if you've heard this individual but if you haven't, just proceed about your business." ("Added Poignancy"). The cliches that resonate from one side his poetry in the hands of virtually any other bard would bring the work down, on the contrary his purposeful use of them calls our attention to their literalness, and the way, in a certain number of senses, they help us to resist change by dint of freezing our repetitive gestures in language. In Wakefulness you will find a "pack of liars," "no release in sight" (a evil transformation of "no relief in sight") "for what appear to beed an eternity," "There are no sum of two units ways about it," "I place two and two together," "I'm within my rights," "Anyway, what can I mention one by one you?" "if it's the last thing we do," "The repose as they say, as they say, is history" (the repeated "as they say" makes this a kind of meta-cliche), "it was single for the books," "burns the midnight oil," "all is discharge to hell," "it gives me tailor's smoothing iron bumps," "there is something to be said for everything," and "It is definitely time to impel on" (many politicians' favorite).