Poetry
- Thread starter jenks
- Start date
other_life
bioconfused
that's fair
i should scrutinise Clepsydra for that sort of thing right quick, that one's my very favorite but i don't know how i made sense of it
i should scrutinise Clepsydra for that sort of thing right quick, that one's my very favorite but i don't know how i made sense of it
other_life
bioconfused
i guess what you call irrelevancies i call 'jokes' but they're jokes for ashbery. and maybe his boyfriend
other_life
bioconfused
odd things about Clepsydra +++ sections i like in particular:
- begins with half of a question
- "Each moment of utterance is the true one; likewise none are true" is kind of a give away for 'what he's doing', i think. something about how ashbery strings statements together is, ~atomistic/monadological~ (for lack of better words)
- using 'non-absence' instead of 'presence' to poke at you vis a vis 'whether or not being present is different from being not-absent'
- this chunk expresses confusion of cause with effect/a reversal in time; is also quite long if distended into sentence form (8 commas and a semicolon before the end stop):
"We hear so much of its further action that at last it seems that it is we, our taking it into account rather, that are the reply that prompted the question, and that the latter, like a person waking on a pillow, has the sensation of having dreamt the whole thing, of returning to participate in that dream, until the last word is exhausted; certainly this is peace of a sort, like nets drying in the sun, that we must progress toward the whole thing about an hour ago."
- confusion of time with place: "Those mysterious and near regions that are precisely the time of its being furthered."
- this is dylan-esque usage, i think: "yet an invisible fountain continually destroys and refreshes the previsions". Compare "the primitive wallflower frieze"
- this is probably the most coherent section. in the past i've read both the drama behind the binding nature of the Torah and the instrumentalisation of Enlightenment into it as 'themes'/'meanings', but right now it's quite difficult to connect with the rest of the poem:
It had been freely drawn up and consented to as insurance
Against the very condition it was now so efficiently
Seeking to establish. It had reduced that other world,
The round one of the telescope, to a kind of very fine powder or dust
So small that space could not remember it.
Thereafter any signs of feeling were cut short by
The comfort and security, a certain elegance even,
Like the fittings of a ship, that are after all
The most normal things in the world. Yes, perhaps, but the words
“After all” are important for understanding the almost
Exaggerated strictness of the condition, and why, in spite of this,
It seemed the validity of the former continuing was
Not likely to be reinstated for a long time.
except:
there was something
Not quite good or correct about the way
Things were looking recently: hasn’t the point
Of all this new construction been to provide
A protected medium for the exchanges each felt of such vital
Concern, and wasn’t it now giving itself the airs of a palace?
And yet her hair had never been so long.
and an almost sefirotic-neoplatonic passage:
I see myself in this totality, and meanwhile
I am only a transparent diagram, of manners and
Private words with the certainty of being about to fall.
And even this crumb of life I also owe to you
For being so close as to seal out knowledge of that other
Voluntary life, and so keep its root in darkness until your
Maturity when your hair will actually be the branches
Of a tree with the light pouring through them.
It intensifies echoes in such a way as to
Form a channel to absorb every correct motion.
In this way any direction taken was the right one,
Leading first to you, and through you to
Myself that is beyond you and which is the same thing as space,
That is the stammering vehicles that remain unknown,
Eating the sky in all sincerity because the difference
Can never be made up: therefore, why not examine the distance?
- begins with half of a question
- "Each moment of utterance is the true one; likewise none are true" is kind of a give away for 'what he's doing', i think. something about how ashbery strings statements together is, ~atomistic/monadological~ (for lack of better words)
- using 'non-absence' instead of 'presence' to poke at you vis a vis 'whether or not being present is different from being not-absent'
- this chunk expresses confusion of cause with effect/a reversal in time; is also quite long if distended into sentence form (8 commas and a semicolon before the end stop):
"We hear so much of its further action that at last it seems that it is we, our taking it into account rather, that are the reply that prompted the question, and that the latter, like a person waking on a pillow, has the sensation of having dreamt the whole thing, of returning to participate in that dream, until the last word is exhausted; certainly this is peace of a sort, like nets drying in the sun, that we must progress toward the whole thing about an hour ago."
- confusion of time with place: "Those mysterious and near regions that are precisely the time of its being furthered."
- this is dylan-esque usage, i think: "yet an invisible fountain continually destroys and refreshes the previsions". Compare "the primitive wallflower frieze"
- this is probably the most coherent section. in the past i've read both the drama behind the binding nature of the Torah and the instrumentalisation of Enlightenment into it as 'themes'/'meanings', but right now it's quite difficult to connect with the rest of the poem:
It had been freely drawn up and consented to as insurance
Against the very condition it was now so efficiently
Seeking to establish. It had reduced that other world,
The round one of the telescope, to a kind of very fine powder or dust
So small that space could not remember it.
Thereafter any signs of feeling were cut short by
The comfort and security, a certain elegance even,
Like the fittings of a ship, that are after all
The most normal things in the world. Yes, perhaps, but the words
“After all” are important for understanding the almost
Exaggerated strictness of the condition, and why, in spite of this,
It seemed the validity of the former continuing was
Not likely to be reinstated for a long time.
except:
there was something
Not quite good or correct about the way
Things were looking recently: hasn’t the point
Of all this new construction been to provide
A protected medium for the exchanges each felt of such vital
Concern, and wasn’t it now giving itself the airs of a palace?
And yet her hair had never been so long.
and an almost sefirotic-neoplatonic passage:
I see myself in this totality, and meanwhile
I am only a transparent diagram, of manners and
Private words with the certainty of being about to fall.
And even this crumb of life I also owe to you
For being so close as to seal out knowledge of that other
Voluntary life, and so keep its root in darkness until your
Maturity when your hair will actually be the branches
Of a tree with the light pouring through them.
It intensifies echoes in such a way as to
Form a channel to absorb every correct motion.
In this way any direction taken was the right one,
Leading first to you, and through you to
Myself that is beyond you and which is the same thing as space,
That is the stammering vehicles that remain unknown,
Eating the sky in all sincerity because the difference
Can never be made up: therefore, why not examine the distance?
other_life
bioconfused
i think the first section i quote in extenso is kind of where the whole thing hits its stride and justifies the stuff before it, whereas before i think he is Riffing on things like 'purposefully confusing place, time, and atmosphere' 'purposefully confusing cause and effect' 'purposefully imputing agency to the environment as if it were normal' in order to generate ideas
other_life
bioconfused
say more
other_life
bioconfused
two posts from you about ashbery the other where you negatively compare barthelme to him
other_life
bioconfused
All-Sexes Homophile's Bathing, Exercise and Recreation Youths (A.S.H.B.E.R.Y)
other_life
bioconfused
other_life
bioconfused
The New Higher (Ashbery) -
You meant more than life to me. I lived through
you not knowing, not knowing I was living.
I learned that you called for me. I came to where
you were living, up a stair. There was no one there.
No one to appreciate me. The legality of it
upset a chair. Many times to celebrate
we were called together and where
we had been there was nothing there,
nothing that is anywhere. We passed obliquely,
leaving no stare. When the sun was done muttering,
in an optimistic way, it was time to leave that there.
Blithely passing in and out of where, blushing shyly
at the tag on the overcoat near the window where
the outside crept away, I put aside the there and now.
Now it was time to stumble anew,
blacking out when time came in the window.
There was not much of it left.
I laughed and put my hands shyly
across your eyes. Can you see now?
Yes I can see I am only in the where
where the blossoming stream takes off, under your window.
Go presently you said. Go from my window.
I am in love with your window I cannot undermine
it, I said.
You meant more than life to me. I lived through
you not knowing, not knowing I was living.
I learned that you called for me. I came to where
you were living, up a stair. There was no one there.
No one to appreciate me. The legality of it
upset a chair. Many times to celebrate
we were called together and where
we had been there was nothing there,
nothing that is anywhere. We passed obliquely,
leaving no stare. When the sun was done muttering,
in an optimistic way, it was time to leave that there.
Blithely passing in and out of where, blushing shyly
at the tag on the overcoat near the window where
the outside crept away, I put aside the there and now.
Now it was time to stumble anew,
blacking out when time came in the window.
There was not much of it left.
I laughed and put my hands shyly
across your eyes. Can you see now?
Yes I can see I am only in the where
where the blossoming stream takes off, under your window.
Go presently you said. Go from my window.
I am in love with your window I cannot undermine
it, I said.