"I think he may have been both serious and less than serious in what he said."
Yes. I also wonder about the role of "camp" in both O'Hara and Ashberry's work,
let alone Andy Warhol. That kind of ambivalent twist - from cutting to quite
subtle - in the use of language. The way neither Ashberry or O'Hara submit to a
predictable sentiment - surely JA is joking about the weather, sort of! I am an
infrequent reader of criticism so I don't know if the role of 'camp'
(particularly in the 50's & earl 60's - before Stonewall) is discussed in
approaching the work. But I suspect - as a strategy - it is in there.
Stephen in San Francisco where it continues to rain cold and non stop - except
for try to stop the leaks, and we're not talking 'wiki' here!
________________________________
From: Jill Jones <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Sat, February 19, 2011 12:00:36 AM
Subject: Re: re-membering moment
OK, here goes:
Ashbery is talking about a Stevens poem 'The Poems of Our Climate', then goes on
to say: 'I write about what is around me at a particular moment and obviously
climate is one of those things. I am looking out of the window very often when I
am writing. Rain is quite predominant. But it is just one of the ambient things
that concern me when I write ... [he goes on a bit like this]
Peter Rose then notes that some of JA's climate references are benign but at
other times associated with destiny, futility, morality. And death. Peter draws
a link to Peter Porter in this.
So JA says: 'Of preoccupation with death? Well, I am preoccupied with the great
themes: death, love, the weather. Whenever people meet on the street the first
thing they talk about is the weather; it springs foremost in everybody's daily
talk, including mine. And I suppose I write about those things because I think
about them a lot and think other people do too.'
The interview than goes on to discuss colloquial language (v the Romantics - the
sublime etc) - that JA thinks we are most ourselves when we are talking - that
said Romantics were less "high-falutin'" than presumed - how we fail to say
exactly what we want in speech, it gets muddled, is unfinished, and that is what
he is trying to mimic the movement of that. Then the interview moves on to other
matters ...
I think he may have been both serious and less than serious in what he said.
Cheers,
Jill
__________________________
Jill Jones
[log in to unmask]
website: www.jilljones.com.au
blog: rubystreet.blogspot.com
On 19/02/2011, at 8:05 AM, Rachel Loden wrote:
> Yes, thanks--lovely moment, as Doug says. The Ashbery quote I can't find is
> also from an interview, something about politics, boredom, and poetry.
>
> How *does* he elaborate on the weather? If it's not inconvenient to say.
>
> Rachel
>
>> Lovely serendipity, Jill.
>>
>> Thanks for the memory.
>>
>> Doug
>> On 2011-02-18, at 12:25 AM, Jill Jones wrote:
>>
>>> Small serendipitous moment:
>>>
>>> For a number of years, I had been referring to a quote from John Ashbery
> about three
>> great themes of poetry - love, death and the weather. I knew I had it
> slightly wrong, and also
>> knew I had read it in something I had around and about me at one stage of
> my life. I also
>> thought it had been lost when I had maybe lent it to someone and a fire
> had destroyed a lot
>> of their papers. There was nary a reference to it via online or library
> search,etc. I even
>> started to think I'd dreamed it up.
>>>
>>> Well, blow me down, here I am with it before me. The result of a huge
> cleanout. It's in a
>> supplement to an old magazine that our 'national broadcaster', the ABC,
> used to publish,
>> called '24 Hours'. Any Aussies remember this wee journal? But that's why
> the quote never
>> turns up in an online search.
>>>
>>> And the quote - from an interview with JA conducted by Peter Rose at the
> Melbourne
>> Writers Festival in 1992 - 'Well, I am preoccupied with the great themes:
> death, love, the
>> weather.' And he elaborates a little further, on the weather.
>>>
>>> So, a small thing, but I now have it. As, among other things, I am
> giving a lecture on
>> Ashbery this semester, I am happy to have a source for quotes/elaborations
> that's not always
>> used. But happier to have this before me - so I know I slightly
> misremembered it, but that it
>> was not a complete figment.
>>>
>>> Misremembering can be a good thing. But re-membering this one is as
> good.
>>>
>>> __________________________
>>> Jill Jones
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>>
>>> website: www.jilljones.com.au
>>> blog: rubystreet.blogspot.com
>>>
>>
>> Douglas Barbour
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
>> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>>
>> Latest books:
>> Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
>> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
>> Wednesdays'
>>
> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.h
> tml
>>
>> Language has unmistakably made plain that memory is not an instrument for
> exploring the
>> past but its theater. It is the medium of past experience, just as the
> earth is the medium in
>> which dead cities lie buried.
>>
>> Walter Benjamin
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