Friday, February 03, 2006
Ashbery speaks (circa 1987)
I've been poking through a library copy of Poets at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, revisiting the golden oldies (Pound, Frost, Eliot) and reading a few that I had never encountered before. There's a sly and sparklng chat with Elizabeth Bishop, for example. And Peter Stitt's conversation with John Ashbery is a keeper. During the interview, Stitt notes, the subject gave "the impression of distraction, as though he wasn't quite sure just what was going on or what his role in the proceedings might be. The interviewer attempted valiantly to extract humorous material, but--as is often the case for readers of Ashbery's poetry--wasn't sure when he succeeded." For non-fans of Ashbery's work, this might be considered a damning description. Of course he has no idea of what's going on! For me, though, the interview itself is a classic example of the poet's unwillingness to play by the rules, meet the formal requirements, etc. Meanwhile, there's the $64,000 question: is Ashbery a solipsist? Here's his answer, at least in part:
This is the way that life appears to me, the way that experience happens. I can concentrate on the things in this room and our talking together, but what the context is is mysterious to me. And it's not that I want to make it more mysterious in my poems--really, I just want to make it more photographic. I often wonder if I am suffering from some mental dysfunction because of how weird and baffling my poetry seems to so many people and sometimes to me too.... When I originally started writing, I expected that probably very few people would read my poetry because in those days people didn't read poetry much anyway. But I also felt that my work was not beyond understanding. It seemed to me rather derivative of or at least in touch with contemporary poetry of the time, and I was quite surprised that nobody seemed to see this. So I live with this paradox: on the one hand, I am an important poet, read by younger writers, and on the other hand, nobody understands me. I am often asked to account for this state of affairs, but I can't.
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Ah, the artist on artistic creation. Mahler: "Perhaps it isn't necessary, or even desirable, for a work of art always to spring from a mood, like an eruption." Ashberry: "I can concentrate on the things in this room and our talking together, but what the context is is mysterious to me. And it's not that I want to make it more mysterious in my poems--really, I just want to make it more photographic." And here's Marcus introducing Mahler's definition of art: "One last note, which pertains more generally to artistic creation, and more egomaniacally to the bumpy home stretch of my own novel-in-progress." Mahler: "There should be a uniform degree of skill throughout. This is true art, which is always at the disposal of its possessor and overcomes all difficulties, even that of one's not being in good form." Overcoming all difficulties, James, you will soon complete your novel and hand it off to your publisher. Congratulations to you, my friend.
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