Maybe doing this is better.
My mojo all gone I wish I were Ashbery.
No, not the poet. I'd have a haberdashery
Ashbery's Haberdashery down thirteen flights.
We're closed all the days and all of the nights.
We'd have derbies and Panamas and the finest fedora
And a curious headdress from far Bora Bora
And a nautical hat that's most like a whale
And none of it, sadly, quite yet for sale.
Cause that's just what happens. That's how it goes.
Without rings and your fingers or bells on your toes
You close up the shop and go down to the zoo
And patiently stare at a panther or two.
As they patiently stare right back at you.
I'm with the readers who look for meaning. A poem ain't a rock.
On Nov 26, 2007 7:52 PM, andrew burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Good ol' Ron S has done some research for me (and you) again. Here's the
> last para of a review of John Ashberry's selection for his last ten books:
>
> 'I concede that £12.95 is a steep price to pay for what many will consider
> to be insurmountably baffling. But bafflement is part of the condition of
> modern poetry, and if there's a modern poet you need on your shelves, and in
> your head, it's Ashbery. As Geoffrey Hill - also an essential poet - once
> said, public toilets have a duty to be accessible, poetry does not.'
>
> I love the Hill quote. The rest of the review is interesting - read it at
> http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/poetry/0,,2216060,00.html
>
> Nicholas Lezard hails the later work of one of the truly essential poets,
> John Ashbery
>
> *Saturday November 24, 2007
> The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk/>*
>
>
> *Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems*, by John Ashbery (Carcanet,
> £12.95)
>
>
> My frustration is that some readers keep looking for meaning in poetry. Why
> should a poem have to 'mean'?! A tree is, a rock is, a wedge-tail eagle is,
> a poem is.
>
>
>
> Andrew
> http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/aburke/
>
--
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