Ashbery: 64 indispensible poems

Al Filreis

In the past two months I've systematically re-read every poem John Ashbery has published, from earliest to current (Quick Question, 2013), and in the second half of that time I've taught (or, rather, led discussions with my students on) several hundred poems. For whatever it’s worth (I don't suppose much), here is my list of 64 poems I deem indispensible to a whole understanding of Ashbery’s writing. Note that six of these 64 “greatest” are from his newest book.

Some Trees (1956)

The Instruction Manual

The Grapevine

The Picture of Little J.A. in a Prospect of Flowers

Some Trees

The Tennis Court Oath (1962)

The Tennis Court Oath

Europe

Idaho

Rivers and Mountains (1966)

These Lacustrine Cities

Rivers and Mountains

Into the Dusk-Charged Air

The Skaters

The Double Dream of Spring (1970)

Soonest Mended

Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape

Three Poems (1972)

The System

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975)

Forties Flick

A Man of Words

The One Thing That Can Save America

Tenth Symphony

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

Houseboat Days (1977)

Street Musicians

Business Personals

Saying It to Keep It from Happening

Daffy Duck in Hollywood

And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name

What Is Poetry

As We Know (1979)

My Erotic Double

Shadow Train (1981)

Paradoxes and Oxymorons

Hard Times

A Wave (1984)

At North Farm

Just Walking Around

Purists Will Object

April Galleons (1987)

Forgotten Sex

Posture of Unease

Vaucanson

Disguised Zenith

October at the Window

Sighs and Inhibitions

Hotel Lautreamont (1992)

On the Empress’s Mind

And the Stars Were Shining (1994)

Well, Yes, Actually

Can You Hear, Bird (1995)

A Poem of Unease

Operators Are Standing By

Sleepers Awake

The Problem of Anxiety

Wakefulness (1998)

Like America

The Dong with the Luminous Nose

Your Name Here (2000)

This Room

Memories of Imperialism

Crossroads in the Past

Where Shall I Wander (2005)

Annuals and Perennials

Planisphere (2009)

Alcove

The Later Me

They Knew What They Wanted

Quick Question (2013)

Quick Question

The Short Answer

How I Met You

Auburn-Tinted Fences

Not Beyond All Conjecture

Iphigenia in Sodus

February 10, 2013

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DIGITAL PEDAGOGY: This was a magazine story published in 2001 about my use of e-media in teaching. “Postmodern poets focused on the process of their poetry, rather than on what the words in their poems actually said. The purpose was to make poetry and language new again. There's no better way to describe Filreis's teaching style. He uses technology to free class time for discussion, which to Filreis is more important than the course material itself. The point is to develop his students' ability to think critically, not to have memorized every last fact about Gertrude Stein. And yet, he said, through that active engagement with the material, students end up remembering more of the content.”

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ASHBERY PERFORMS STEVENS: In October of 1989, John Ashbery went to St. John's the Divine Cathedral in New York to be part of the induction of Wallace Stevens at the Poets' Corner. There was a vespers service and Ashbery read six sections of Stevens's "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven." Imagine that--that poem read at a vespers service! Anyway, I certainly don't know of another recording of Ashbery performing Stevens. Stevens was a fairly bad reader of his own poems. Ashbery is deemed by many to be an indifferent reader of his poems. (I don't agree, but understand the point.) But here, reading Stevens, Ashbery is marvelous. Here is a 7-minute recording of sections 3, 5, 12, 17, 18 and 30 of the Stevens poem that comes closest to real serial writing (seriality at the level of the section, anyway).

THE (ANTI)MODERN PRESIDENT. After looking at an abstract mural at the U.N. then President-elect Eisenhower said, “To be modern you don't have to be nuts.”

THE END OF THE LECTURE & PLANNING TO STAY. As often as I can, I call for the end of the lecture as we know it. I'm pretty serious about this - not often exaggerating on the point. Click here for one of many forays into the topic. Once you're there, click on the "end of the lecture" tag for still more. My thoughts on institutional politics and the arts were presented in a manifesto called "Planning to Stay" (published as a pamphlet by No Press); the text of that talk is available here.

KELLY WRITERS HOUSEPhiladelphia's PBS affiliate, WHYY-12, produces a TV show that in each episode features four centers for the arts and creativity in the Philadelphia region. For its winter 2010-11 program, the show devoted 15 minutes to the Kelly Writers House in a segment called “The Creative Campus.” To watch the video, click on the image above.

REPRESENTATIONS OF THE HOLOCAUSTI dislike Spielberg’s Schindler’s List intensely. It's a film, I think, that is very friendly toward sovereignty. For more on this minority view, click on the image above. I teach a course at Penn on representations of the Holocaust in literature and film every other fall semester.

In 2003 I founded and continue to direct the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing at the University of Pennsylvania. CPCW brought together the university's writing programs and projects: Critical Writing, Creative Writing, the Kelly Writers House, PennSound, RealArts@PENN, Writers Without Borders, Creative Ventures, Jacket2, and more. For information and links to each of these projects, click on the logo above.