from the closet
Some of the poems have a shape, some don’t. I chickened out and let other people read them. Immediately I felt this was a mistake. I wanted to take over and perform them, because...
Monthly Archive: January 2004
poet’s progress
A silly idea: Create a poem entitled Treesome which is Ashbery’s Some Trees in reverse. It reads very well backwards. I made some more quick edits to Untitled Poetry Manuscript. I’m taking it out...
meaning schmeaning
Birkerts doesn’t like Ashbery’s poems. He says they’re nihilist. He says “I can only report on the defensive reflexes that their insistent refusal of meaning triggers in me.” (SB, p235) And, linking JA with...
irritable reaching
when I want writing to be like weaving, regular, with a pattern, over and over, front and back, side to side when I want writing to be like knitting, taking a thread, working it...
the short form
not much time to write interpersonal existence a lot going on I like the ice and snow scape outside my window
intellect and other thoughts
A weighty topic. I’m reading John Ashbery, An Introduction to the Poetry, by David Shapiro. It’s a thrill. It’s just difficult enough that it’s hard to read more than a few pages at a...
pink dew of afterthoughts
I bought a copy of Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, by John Ashbery. I’ve been carrying it around with me like a secret. It might be a perverse attraction. His writing is just so...