John Ashbery: Jul 28 1927- Sept 3 2017

How do I write an appreciation of John Ashbery? He died this past Sunday at age 90 and was a writer always. I started to say, in my Facebook post about his passing, that his words were often comfort and joy to me until I realized this is a quote from a holiday carol. See how easy it is to fall into maudlin cliche and bad writing?

I first wrote of my discovery of John Ashbery in January 2013 after taking the self guided East Village Poetry Walk in lower Manhatten. As I said then, I was crossing the park with Ashbery's voice in my ear reading Just Walking Around (A Wave, 1984). It was a beautiful neighbourhood park full of families and dogs and a few bench lounging drunks. During what was often a lonely trip to for me, it reminded me of my heart's home.

"But you are too preoccupied
By the secret smudge in the back of your soul
To say much and wander around,
Smiling to yourself and others.
It gets to be kind of lonely
But at the same time off-putting.
Counterproductive..."

A big dog bounded toward me, all smiling legs and tail and I felt the tight spring inside me uncoil a notch. I've listened to and read that poem countless times since that day. I can recite it by heart.

St Mark's Place, NYC January 2013

Ashbery's 1991 book length poem Flow Chart was my near constant companion through 2014. It was with me most Friday nights at my favourite diner where I sat over greasy food and pints reading and reading and sometimes trying to write myself. I marked my favourite passages with bits of torn napkin, copied them into my journal: 

"...dig our heels in and ask the cliff 
to explain itself, and the ferns erupting from its crevices:  I too 
have stood here faceless and seemingly angry for a long time, yet for all that
don't feel it time to intimidate someone, make him or her feel lonesome just 
   because there is
indeed a horizon"

Or this:

"...And will my genuine if respectful indifference militate 
against the neutrality of my performance? Is a conflict of interest shaping up, or
     what?"

Or what, indeed?

Seems to be. Perhaps. You see. If so. I feel that. However...

He used common clauses to link lengthy yet individually simple, phrases into complex and famously "difficult" poetry. 
From The Guardian's obituary:

“I don’t find any direct statements in life,” Ashbery once explained to the Times in London. “My poetry imitates or reproduces the way knowledge or awareness comes to me, which is by fits and starts and by indirection. I don’t think poetry arranged in neat patterns would reflect that situation.”

I disagree with the difficult label. His writing to me, is the flow in the Flow Chart. One reads and an impression takes hold. His writing is a mirror to the way an observant mind processes the world. Music, visual imagery, snatches of news and conversation, all spool out to form an idea. It's stated then left there as another takes shape. Perhaps it will be repeated later or perhaps not. Like waves lapping on the shore, climbing and receding, if listened to long enough, the experience of the experience becomes clear to you, even if you you don't understand exactly why.

Well thumbed.

John Ashbery was, of course, incredibly erudite, well read and well traveled.  He was also a professional art critic. He often referenced specific art work and literature in his poems and why wouldn't he? From mention of the opera Orlando Furioso in Soonest Mended (1962), to the painter Parmigianino in Self Portrait in A Convex Mirror (1975), to the Sibelius Quartet in Hotel Lautreamont (2007), it was always done with relevance and without arrogance. I have found that knowing the references is not always necessary to the appreciation of the work, but hey, we live in the world of the internet and it's delightfully easy to look these things up. 

My signed copy of  the Pulitzer Prize winning book - a gift from my Love.

We have the internet to thank as well for access to many recordings of Ashbery reading from his work. He had a pleasant and clear voice and read aloud in my favourite style; straightforward and without unnecessary dramatic emoting. He let the strength of the words carry the piece. I enjoy listening to him while I knit or take transit. I've heard him so often that when I read his poems to myself, it is his voice that I hear in my head.

Yes, I'm a little sad that he's gone but he was ninety years old after all.  He wrote until the end of his long and graceful life so he left us much to enjoy and discover - profound yet simple phrases such as "The inside of stumbling. The way to breath" (Homeless Heart, 2012). His last new collection came out in 2015. Isn't that remarkable? Mostly I suppose I'm sad because no longer can I use 'America's greatest living poet' as answer to the question, 'Who is John Ashbery? '.

"And now that the end is near,
The segments of the trip swing open like an orange.
There is light in there, and mystery and food.
Come see it. Come not for me but it.
But if I am still there, grant that we may see each other"

Photograph: Eamonn McCabe for the Guardian