Monday, January 12th: John Ashbery Day 2

We last left John Ashbery with a selection of poems from his 1966 collection, Rivers and Mountains, a book we'll return to on our final day with the poet, when we look at his long-form poem, "The Skaters," which is a centerpiece of that volume.

1966 is a transitional year for the New York School. Frank O'Hara, who formed the social center of the group, died in July of that year, leaving a palpable void, and Paul Blackburn started the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery — two events which would help give rise to a second generation of poets like Ted Berrigan, Anne Waldman, Lewis Warsh, Bernadette Mayer and Ron Padgett.

For Monday, you'll be reading from a trio of books Ashbery published in the 1970s, a decade in which he moved from poetic upstart to an established literary figure. As before, recordings are available for a number of the poems, so be sure to listen along as you read.

from The Double Dream of Spring (1970)

• Soonest Mended (184) MP3
• It Was Raining in the Capital (187) MP3
• Decoy (195)
• Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape (206) MP3 (beginning cut off)
• Parergon (212) MP3

from Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975)

• As One Put Drunk into the Packet-Boat (427)
• Forties Flick (429) MP3
• Scheherazade (432) MP3
• Mixed Feelings (455) MP3
• The One Things That Can Save America (457)

from Houseboat Days (1977)

• The Other Tradition (491) MP3
• Pyrography (495) MP3 (ends prematurely)
• Crazy Weather (503)
• Wet Casements (508) MP3
• Daffy Duck in Hollywood (510) MP3 (beginning cut off)
• Lost and Found and Lost Again (514)
• And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name (519) MP3
• What is Poetry (520) MP3

Notes:

• Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape: This is one of the better-known examples of the sestina, a form which repeats the end words in its first stanza throughout a number of patterns

• Pyrography: see also Larry Rivers' portrait of Ashbery which has the same name, and incorporates the opening lines of the poem


• Daffy Duck in Hollywood: though the poem takes its name from this Looney Tunes short:

it probably betrays the influence of this Daffy Duck cartoon as well: