君子不器
THE PLEASURES OF POETRY Certainly Ashbery’s art criticism helps illuminate some of the fundamental principles that govern his own poetry. From 1965 until 1972, Ashbery worked as executive editor of the New York-based magazine Art News, in which he published major essays on de Kooning, Saul Steinberg, Joseph Cornell and avant-garde art in general. One…
Soonest Mended Barely tolerated, living on the marginIn our technological society, we were always having to be rescued On the brink of destruction, like heroines in Orlando FuriosoBefore it was time to start all over again.There would be thunder in the bushes, a rustling of coils, And Angelica, in the Ingres painting, was…
Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse We were warned about spiders, and the occasional famine.We drove downtown to see our neighbors. None of them were home.We nestled in yards the municipality had created,reminisced about other, different places—but were they? Hadn’t we known it all before? …
Three Poems by John Ashbery i. “I See Said the Blind Man, as He Put Down His Hammer and Saw” There is some charm in that old music He’d fall for when the night wind released it: Pleasant to be away; the stones fall back; The hill of gloom in place over the roar Of…