[New-Poetry] Re: Ashes, ashes, we all fall down

[Anny Ballardini]

I preferred your own concoction, the only one that made sense!
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: David Graham 
  To: NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &Views 
  Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 4:08 PM
  Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Ashes, ashes, we all fall down


  Thanks for playing the game, everyone.  We have one winner, Linda Sue Grimes, who correctly identified both quotation and critic--you didn't cheat with Google, now did you, Linda?  We also have an anonymous backchannel winner.  Both winners will receive my full thanks as well as an imaginary convex mirror.  


  As Robin pointed out, (A) is of course MacLeish.  Choice (B) was written by Stephen Burt in a recent review of the book in the Times Literary Supplement.  
  http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article3626601.ece


  The other choices were my own concoctions.  My point, to the extent I had one, was simple amusement at how often critics attempt to paraphrase Ashbery poems, when to my eyes this often amounts to pushing rope uphill.  The poems themselves seem to permit almost any sort of description.  





  ========================================
  David Graham
  grahamd at ripon.edu


  Home Page:
  http://web.mac.com/drjazz


  Poetry Library:
  http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
  ==========================================







  On Apr 16, 2008, at 6:51 AM, Linda Sue Grimes wrote:

    B written by Stephen Burt

    lsg
      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: David Graham 
      To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu & Views 
      Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 8:15 PM
      Subject: [New-Poetry] Ashes, ashes, we all fall down


      As part of National Too Much Poetry Month, NewPo is pleased to offer its first Ashbery quiz. 


      Ready?


      Here's a poem from Mr. Ashbery's most recent book:


      The Inchcape Rock
      Prop up the "meaning,"
      take the trash out, the dog for a walk,
      give the old balls a scratch, apologize for three things
      by Friday--oh quiet noumenon
      of my soul, this is it, right?
      You lost the key and the answer is inside
      somewhere, and where are you going to breathe?
      The box is shut that knew you
      and all your friends,
      voices that could have spoken in your behalf ...
      Why, what did you want me to do with them?
      Half a document is sufficient to this
      weather, wild time, excrescence, more.
      Rumors sift across a bald apologia.
      The feet are here.
      --John Ashbery. A Worldly Country.  HarperCollins, 2007.
      _______________________


      Which of the following descriptions best captures the above poem's theme?  


      A) A poem must not mean but be.  


      B) The poet imagines himself dying, and then dead, enclosed in a coffin from which his spirit has departed.


      C)  Life is a ravishing disappointment, most of the time, but oh well.


      D)  Getting old is a real bitch, but the supreme fiction never dies.


      E)  Even our closest friendships are riddled with rumors, missed connections, and contradictory memories.




      Extra credit:


      One of the above descriptions was actually written by a prominent critic.  Identify which one, and for extra-extra credit, name the critic.  
      ========================================




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