Suggested Blog Topic: John Ashberry
I realize I wasn't really sure what to say about John Ashberry, and I guess because he's never really been a poet I've studied or followed the way I've followed other poets.
I guess he has always seemed like the statue on top of the hill-- a little untouchable, a little removed.
So I found this so you can hear a little of John in his own words. He has a calmness about him, a cadence in his speech and in his poems we can learn from.
After watching this, he seems less like someone I'd move away from. If you're interested in reading Ashberry, here are the books I'd recommend--
Some Trees, The Double Dream of Spring
I guess he has always seemed like the statue on top of the hill-- a little untouchable, a little removed.
So I found this so you can hear a little of John in his own words. He has a calmness about him, a cadence in his speech and in his poems we can learn from.
After watching this, he seems less like someone I'd move away from. If you're interested in reading Ashberry, here are the books I'd recommend--
Some Trees, The Double Dream of Spring
Ashbery's an enormous topic, no? Not only a very long career to look at, but he's been a lightning rod for all sorts critical dispute. I have a long-term love/hate affair with his work. At times I can't stand his poetry, at other times I'm strangely sucked in.
ReplyDeleteFor me the "best" Ashbery is in the shorter lyrics. Favorite books: Houseboat Days, Self-Portrait..., and Shadow Train.
I recently went on a little binge imitating Ashbery, especially his 16-line poems in Shadow Train, the result of which was a sequence of poems in Salt River Review:
http://www.poetserv.org/SRR31/graham.html
(One "R" in Ashbery, by the way.)