American poet (1927- )
One can lose a good idea by not writing it down, yet by losing it one can have it: it nourishes other asides it knows nothing of, would not recognize itself in, yet when the negotiations are terminated, speaks in the acts of that progenitor, and does recognize itself, is grateful for not having done so earlier.
JOHN ASHBERY
Flow Chart
The music brought us what it seemed
We had long desired, but in a form
So rarefied there was no emptiness of sensation.
JOHN ASHBERY
Some Trees
The summer demands and takes away too much. But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes.
JOHN ASHBERY
Self-Portrait in a convex Mirror
I would like to please the reader, and I think that surprise has to be an element of this, and that may necessitate a certain amount of teasing. To shock the reader is something else again. That has to be handled with great care if you're not going to alienate and hurt him, and I'm firmly against that, just as I disapprove of people who dress with that in mind--dye their hair blue and stick safety pins through their noses and so on.
JOHN ASHBERY
interview, The Paris Review, winter 1983
How funny your name would be
if you could follow it back to where
the first person thought of saying it,
naming himself that, or maybe
some other persons thought of it
and named that person. It would
be like following a river to its source,
which would be impossible. Rivers have no source.
JOHN ASHBERY
Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems
And sudden day unbuttoned her blouse.
JOHN ASHBERY
"The Suspended Life", The Tennis Court Oath: A Book of Poems
Well, there are certain stock words that I have found myself using a great deal. When I become aware of them, it is an alarm signal meaning I am falling back on something that has served in the past--it is a sign of not thinking at the present moment, not that there is anything intrinsically bad about certain words or phrases.
JOHN ASHBERY
interview, The Paris Review, winter 1983
Did I say that? One says so many things, and the problem is they all get written down.
JOHN ASHBERY
Q&A at Bard College, 2005
Somewhere someone is traveling furiously toward you,
At incredible speed, traveling day and night,
Through blizzards and desert heat, across torrents,
through narrow passes.
But will he know where to find you,
Recognize you when he sees you,
Give you the thing he has for you?
JOHN ASHBERY
"At North Farm", A Wave: Poems
Just keep playing, mastering as you do the step
Into disorder this one meant. Don't you see
It's all we can do?
Meanwhile, great fires
Arise, as of haystacks aflame. The dial has been set
And that's ominous, but all your graciousness in living
Conspires with it, now that this is our home:
A place to be from, and have people ask about.
JOHN ASHBERY
"Rain Moving In", A Wave: Poems