I read Some Trees and The Tennis Court Oath by John Ashbery, two early volumes which are collected by the Ecco Press in The Mooring of Starting Out.

"Europe," a long poem in 111 numbered stanzas, is typical of his work from the period. It achieves its effects with collaged layers of words, the layers overlapping and obscuring other layers. We can make out the story of an aviatrix, as well as automobile journey through Suffolk. There are intimations of war and disaster, as well as a murder plot. Sometimes the language suggests "found art," but no appropriations are credited. There is an Asian influence: stanza 17, for instance consists of words precisely positioned on the page, like a gesture in a Japanese brush painting.

I moved up

                   glove
       the field

"The Painter" is a fine example of a sestina, a 39-line Medieval French form that, according to Lewis Turco, has enjoyed a vogue in English in the 20th century. The six end words of the first stanza (called teleutons) are repeated as end words in a prescribed order in the remaining five sestets, and then reappear in the closing triplet. Lines 1 to 6:

Sitting between the sea and the buildings
He enjoyed painting the sea's portrait.
But just as children imagine a prayer
Is merely silence, he expected his subject
To rush up the sand, and, seizing the brush,
Plaster its own portrait on the canvas.

In the table of contents of my copy of the book, I also put a checkmark next to "Chaos," an emotional migraine headache in three stanzas; "He," 48 end-stopped lines of the form He + verb + predicate; and "The Ascetic Sensualists," a poem in eleven "funerals."

posted: 8:22:01 AM