A review of Ashbery's Selected Prose, parts drafted first here, at Verse.
2/27/05
2/24/05
I write for money. It's in my blood.
What's wrong with a billion for two
circulating on a branch, feathery
and hollow-boned under another?
Keynes says somewhere no one ever
writes the real story for free. You've
got to be sculpture to understand.
The real story is staring at money.
You can't count the coin fast enough --
seized by the global network of a lifetime
on tropical C-notes without whose woven
mass, chocolate and auburn, everything's
charm-free illuminating patterns entered
by a shower of gold coins.
And this was the hottest,
hot and cool, small video screens
of mist over water, a balloon floating
in a swimming pool, views down
hallways of stairs cut apart and fronted
with music waking in hazy-brightness
without memory of how you got there.
What's wrong with a billion for two
circulating on a branch, feathery
and hollow-boned under another?
Keynes says somewhere no one ever
writes the real story for free. You've
got to be sculpture to understand.
The real story is staring at money.
You can't count the coin fast enough --
seized by the global network of a lifetime
on tropical C-notes without whose woven
mass, chocolate and auburn, everything's
charm-free illuminating patterns entered
by a shower of gold coins.
And this was the hottest,
hot and cool, small video screens
of mist over water, a balloon floating
in a swimming pool, views down
hallways of stairs cut apart and fronted
with music waking in hazy-brightness
without memory of how you got there.
2/23/05
Buddy Trial
Don't think of it as conspiracy. The sun in the square
Winter afternoons. An antidepressant did it.
Angling over the apartments so the light bisects --
Why not make a documentary of it? The northern row
Of dark houses diagonal the grand house, the guy
Next door wants to know if you took the rubber duck
That was suddenly -- Carl, no! and a chill equipoise
In a bitter year; it would be helpful if the first words
Out of your mouth weren't "J'accuse." It's been weeks
Harshly formal by day, brusque in their authority.
And these lights here let you know when the camera
Is obsolete. At the beginning of evening they'd go a blue
-- I'm in the sandwich generation lit from top to bottom
Mommy and dad and their friends pretending
They don't have horrible lives now.
Don't think of it as conspiracy. The sun in the square
Winter afternoons. An antidepressant did it.
Angling over the apartments so the light bisects --
Why not make a documentary of it? The northern row
Of dark houses diagonal the grand house, the guy
Next door wants to know if you took the rubber duck
That was suddenly -- Carl, no! and a chill equipoise
In a bitter year; it would be helpful if the first words
Out of your mouth weren't "J'accuse." It's been weeks
Harshly formal by day, brusque in their authority.
And these lights here let you know when the camera
Is obsolete. At the beginning of evening they'd go a blue
-- I'm in the sandwich generation lit from top to bottom
Mommy and dad and their friends pretending
They don't have horrible lives now.
William Buckley Yeats
The listless player in the field is the health insurers.
How can those terrified fingers push
Her attitude on the law? "You know what? When the laws
Are unjust, I really don't care." But feel the strange heart
Beating where it is?
Those who believe in the market welcome maneuvers
A shudder in the loins engenders
A special odium at large, a sudden blow: the great wings
Beating still that bring to mind the temper of dissenters.
What are the rules in a free society?
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
The current figures hold, the rupture deepened,
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But a seesaw between the two happens frequently
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
Turning an intellectual hatred is the worst;
That he would be killed, followed quickly by the execution,
Had the special effect. Considering that, all hatred
Driven hence, the soul recovers innocence,
The most copious source of this.
Surely some revelation at hand
Surely it is piquant the man we tried to kill
Flaunts judicial extravagances while all about
A vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Cries of victors' justice spring forth.
Thirst for symbolic vindication will continue unslaked.
News, rants, activism and other things come round at last
The darkness drops again; but now I know
The work can vividly be described the head of a man;
The ceremony of innocence drowned;
A broad search suggests the scope of festering animosity;
A crazy salad with their meat. Vexed to nightmare
It may help to recall beheadings were conventional
Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone, and everywhere
I will not write, ever, a formal autobiography.
The listless player in the field is the health insurers.
How can those terrified fingers push
Her attitude on the law? "You know what? When the laws
Are unjust, I really don't care." But feel the strange heart
Beating where it is?
Those who believe in the market welcome maneuvers
A shudder in the loins engenders
A special odium at large, a sudden blow: the great wings
Beating still that bring to mind the temper of dissenters.
What are the rules in a free society?
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
The current figures hold, the rupture deepened,
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But a seesaw between the two happens frequently
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
Turning an intellectual hatred is the worst;
That he would be killed, followed quickly by the execution,
Had the special effect. Considering that, all hatred
Driven hence, the soul recovers innocence,
The most copious source of this.
Surely some revelation at hand
Surely it is piquant the man we tried to kill
Flaunts judicial extravagances while all about
A vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Cries of victors' justice spring forth.
Thirst for symbolic vindication will continue unslaked.
News, rants, activism and other things come round at last
The darkness drops again; but now I know
The work can vividly be described the head of a man;
The ceremony of innocence drowned;
A broad search suggests the scope of festering animosity;
A crazy salad with their meat. Vexed to nightmare
It may help to recall beheadings were conventional
Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone, and everywhere
I will not write, ever, a formal autobiography.
2/22/05
Clark Coolidge may be the most powerful poet on either coast. But not even he considers the majority of his work first-rate.
"I know a lot of what I've written is not 'A' work," he said recently over lunch. "But my role was different. I wanted to raise the level of everyday poetry as much as I could."
Such self-effacing charm is typical of Coolidge, and it has helped him land some of the most coveted publication deals in the U.S. Gracious and conservatively dressed, he moves comfortably in the upper levels of poetry society. And his willingness to compromise -- buttressed by well-honed political skills -- has long made him a favorite of publishers, who tend to see financial interests and creative vision as incompatible.
But Coolidge is no longer content to be the pet poet of the mainstream world: he now longs for the kind of critical recognition that has so far eluded him. Increasingly, in seeking it he has begun to position himself as a worthy rival to the more daring poets from whom he once sought to distance himself.
This desire could be seen as a function of age. At 63, Coolidge has left his mark on a wide range of important projects -- from Robes of Oba published by the powerhouse The Figures to the stylish French publication by Foundation Royaumont of Le texte des billets (cristals) -- but he has yet to create the kind of poetry that inspires awe or has lasting meaning.
His sudden conversion may also be viewed as a professional necessity. In recent years, he has had to watch as more conceptually challenging poets like Emmanuel Moses, John Peck and Marilyn Hacker have risen to the top of their profession without sacrificing their creative visions. It's not just art-crazed poet-tasters that are seeking them out; mainstream readers and, more important, ordinary publishers -- the kind of "clients" who have traditionally been Coolidge's bread and butter -- have come to realize that these poets can shore up the bottom line by increasing a project's value and easing it through often tricky aesthetic territory.
The paradox is that Coolidge's change of heart coincides with the most politically fraught project of his career, the rewriting -- some would say the reweaving -- of his earlier work Own Face within the frame of a much less sanguine piece of his titled Bomb. The new project is tentatively titled Freedom as Thought, which despite revisions is looking more and more second-rate. Its twisted syntactical form capped by a network of cabalistic images is clumsily conceived, and there is no reason to expect it to improve.
Instead of boosting Coolidge's reputation, the project underlines the difficulty he faces trying to polish it. Aside from tapping fresh, creative resources, he has to challenge his own mindset, which is more about pleasing clients than about executing worthy poetry for them.
Poetry is the art of balancing values: spiritual, aesthetic, public, private. It always involves compromise, and few poets would deny that the client's desires take precedence. But the best poets understand that they also have an obligation to the public, no matter which publisher is paying their bills. That often means investing time in educating clients rather than simply acceding to their desires.
In a way, Coolidge may be a prisoner of his past. He has always operated on the assumption that satisfying a client's needs trumps creativity. After years of loyal service, his clients expect him to bend when it serves their purposes.
"There are moments when I feel I can't be part of this, and I want to walk away," he said recently over a still steaming tarte aux pommes. "I envy Marilyn's ability to do that," he said of Ms. Hacker. "I know she's walked away when she knows the battle's lost. But I can't do that. I can't do that to my clients."
"I know a lot of what I've written is not 'A' work," he said recently over lunch. "But my role was different. I wanted to raise the level of everyday poetry as much as I could."
Such self-effacing charm is typical of Coolidge, and it has helped him land some of the most coveted publication deals in the U.S. Gracious and conservatively dressed, he moves comfortably in the upper levels of poetry society. And his willingness to compromise -- buttressed by well-honed political skills -- has long made him a favorite of publishers, who tend to see financial interests and creative vision as incompatible.
But Coolidge is no longer content to be the pet poet of the mainstream world: he now longs for the kind of critical recognition that has so far eluded him. Increasingly, in seeking it he has begun to position himself as a worthy rival to the more daring poets from whom he once sought to distance himself.
This desire could be seen as a function of age. At 63, Coolidge has left his mark on a wide range of important projects -- from Robes of Oba published by the powerhouse The Figures to the stylish French publication by Foundation Royaumont of Le texte des billets (cristals) -- but he has yet to create the kind of poetry that inspires awe or has lasting meaning.
His sudden conversion may also be viewed as a professional necessity. In recent years, he has had to watch as more conceptually challenging poets like Emmanuel Moses, John Peck and Marilyn Hacker have risen to the top of their profession without sacrificing their creative visions. It's not just art-crazed poet-tasters that are seeking them out; mainstream readers and, more important, ordinary publishers -- the kind of "clients" who have traditionally been Coolidge's bread and butter -- have come to realize that these poets can shore up the bottom line by increasing a project's value and easing it through often tricky aesthetic territory.
The paradox is that Coolidge's change of heart coincides with the most politically fraught project of his career, the rewriting -- some would say the reweaving -- of his earlier work Own Face within the frame of a much less sanguine piece of his titled Bomb. The new project is tentatively titled Freedom as Thought, which despite revisions is looking more and more second-rate. Its twisted syntactical form capped by a network of cabalistic images is clumsily conceived, and there is no reason to expect it to improve.
Instead of boosting Coolidge's reputation, the project underlines the difficulty he faces trying to polish it. Aside from tapping fresh, creative resources, he has to challenge his own mindset, which is more about pleasing clients than about executing worthy poetry for them.
Poetry is the art of balancing values: spiritual, aesthetic, public, private. It always involves compromise, and few poets would deny that the client's desires take precedence. But the best poets understand that they also have an obligation to the public, no matter which publisher is paying their bills. That often means investing time in educating clients rather than simply acceding to their desires.
In a way, Coolidge may be a prisoner of his past. He has always operated on the assumption that satisfying a client's needs trumps creativity. After years of loyal service, his clients expect him to bend when it serves their purposes.
"There are moments when I feel I can't be part of this, and I want to walk away," he said recently over a still steaming tarte aux pommes. "I envy Marilyn's ability to do that," he said of Ms. Hacker. "I know she's walked away when she knows the battle's lost. But I can't do that. I can't do that to my clients."
2/17/05
Um, let's see: living imitates video programming: lit as sport and entertainment: prose tourney previews where poetry / blog pop contests are heading? "The process is arbitrary," it says.
Factor in, please, strategists and their victims, the realities of war.
Factor in, please, strategists and their victims, the realities of war.
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