John Ashbery
John Ashbery
John Lawrence Ashberyis an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. Renowned for its postmodern complexity and opacity, Ashbery's work still proves controversial. Ashbery has stated that he wishes his work to be accessible to as many people as possible, and not to be a private dialogue with himself. At the same time,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth28 July 1927
CountryUnited States of America
How funny your name would be if you could follow it back to where the first person thought of saying it, naming himself that, or maybe some other persons thought of it and named that person. It would be like following a river to its source, which would be impossible. Rivers have no source.
Therefore bivouac we On this great, blond highway, unimpeded by Veiled scruples, worn conundrums. Morning is Impermanent. Grab sex things, swing up Over the horizon like a boy On a fishing expedition.
Part of the strength of Pollock and Rothko's art, in fact, is this doubt as to whether art may be there at all.
The evening light was like honey in the trees When you left me and walked to the end of the street Where the sunset abruptly ended. The wedding-cake drawbridge lowered itself To the fragile forget-me-not flower. You climbed aboard. Burnt horizons suddenly paved with golden stones, Dreams I had, including suicide, Puff out the hot-air balloon now. It is bursting, it is about to burst
Just when I thought there wasn't room enough for another thought in my head, I had this great idea—
How many people came and stayed a certain time, Uttered light or dark speech that became part of you Like light behind windblown fog and sand Filtered and influenced by it, until no part Remains that is surely you.
Poetry is mostly hunches.
And so we turn the page over. To think of starting. This is all there is.
In the increasingly convincing darkness The words become palpable, like a fruit That is too beautiful to eat.
This whole moment is the groin Of a borborygmic giant who even now Is rolling over on us in his sleep.
Then let yourself love all that you take delight in Accept yourself whole, accept the heritage That shaped you and is passed on from age to age Down to your entity. Remain mysterious; Rather than be pure, accept yourself as numerous.
There is the view that poetry should improve your life. I think people confuse it with the Salvation Army.
Imagine a painter crucified by his subject!
It never seems to occur to anyone that each reader is different, and that even those who might be said to resemble each other will each bring an individual set of experiences and references to their reading, and interpret and misinterpret it according to these.