Planisphere

By Ashbery, John
Planisphere

Details

Authors: Ashbery, John
Copyright: 2009
Format: Paperback
GTIN13: 9780061915222
ISBN10: 006191522X
Page Count: 160
Dimensions: 6.7x0.43x8.86
Publisher: Ecco Press
Jacket Notes:

Breathlike

Just as the day could use another hour,
I need another idea. Not a concept
or a slogan. Something more like a rut
made thousands of years ago by one of the first
wheels as it rolled along. It never came back
to see what it had done, and the rut
just stayed there, not thinking of itself
or calling attention to itself in any way.
Sun baked it. Water stood, or rather sat
in it. Wind covered it with dust, then blew it
away. Always it was available to itself
when it wished to be, which wasn't often.

Then there was a cup and ball theory
I told you about. A lot of people had left the coast.
Squirt conditions obtained. I forgot I overwhelmed you
once upon a time, between everybody's sound sleep
and waking afterward, trying to piece together
what had happened. The rut glimmered
through centuries of snow and after.
I suppose it was trying to make some point
but we never found out about that,
having come to know each other years later
when our interest in zoning had revived again.

Strand Notes

At eighty-one years, John Ashbery remains as curious, imaginative, lucid, and abstract in the making of poems as ever. Nothing seems to escape his attention. In PLANISPHERE, nothing is deducted from either the poet's insight or outer vision - the things of the world, in the everyday anticipation of how they might both accelerate and delay our intentions, adhere to the page.. Ashbery has always been willing to offer the diversion a chance to show its stuff while evidencing the most pertinent moments with a monumental sense of play among words, images, ideas. and feelings. His poems share the secrecy of a passion undeterred by living the true existence of a poet:. nothing is offlimits. In these poems, Ashbery collapses the coincidence of life and death. Which is when poetry matters the most of all. This is a book of poems you won't want to lose track of. 146p.

Description

"Ashbery is a national treasure."
--New York Times Book Review

The poetry of John Ashbery has been awarded virtually every conceivable literary prize including the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the Griffin, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Planisphere is a new collection by one of America's most innovative and influential poets--an exceptional artist whose work stands alongside the finest of Whitman, Dickinson, Stevens, and Hart Crane. For more than half a century Ashbery has been producing timeless works such as Chinese Whispers, Hotel Lautr amont, A Wave, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, and Where Shall I Wander. Planisphere is proof that the master only improves with age.

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