Notes on John Ashbery’s “Decoy”

We hold these truths to be self-evident:
That ostracism, both political and moral, has
Its place in the twentieth-century scheme of things;
That urban chaos is the problem we have been seeing into and seeing into,
For the factory, deadpanned by its very existence into a
Descending code of values, has moved right across the road from total financial upheaval
And caught regression head-on. The descending scale does not imply
A corresponding deterioration of moral values, punctuated
By acts of corporate vandalism every five years,
Like a bunch of violets pinned to a dress, that knows and ignores its own standing.
There is every reason to rejoice with those self-styled prophets of commercial disaster, those harbingers of gloom,
Over the imminent lateness of the denouement that, advancing slowly, never arrives,
At the same time keeping the door open to a tongue-in-cheek attitude on the part of the perpetrators,
The men who sit down to their vast desks on Monday to begin planning the week’s notations, jotting memoranda that take
Invisible form in the air, like flocks of sparrows
Above the city pavements, turning and wheeling aimlessly
But on the average directed by discernible motives.

To sum up: We are fond of plotting itineraries
And our pyramiding memories, alert as dandelion fuzz, dart from one pretext to the next
Seeking in occasions new sources of memories, for memory is profit
Until the day it spreads out in all its accumulation, delta-like, on the plain
For that day no good can come of remembering, and the anomalies cancel each other out.
But until then foreshortened memories will keep us going, alive, one to the other.
There was never any excuse for this and perhaps there need be none,
For kicking out into the morning, on the wide bed,
Waking far apart on the bed, the two of them:
Husband and wife
Man and wife

*

[ PennSound 1 ]
[ PennSound 2 ]

*

—

Another "angle" we might wish to look at (which might need the connections you brought) is the presence of painterly terms and techniques. "Decoy" could be Chirico's dummy, or any such model we use for painting and is usually unseen in the final product. It might also be fowl decoy for hunting season (there's enough bird presence to hint at that maybe? delta-like accumulation, flocks of sparrows?).

Also borrowing from fine art: foreshortening. Which is among the illusions necessary to achieve a 3D effect on a 2D plane. Connecting it with "memory" makes memory merely an attempt at truth, a (more or less) willful perversion of actual values to achieve verisimilitude.

In sum: much meta to be had.

—
—
—
—

Before "Husband and wife / Man and wife" I'd like to comment on how this begins writ large (Declaration, nation, etc) in the first stanza and ends with that focus on a couple (or a couple of couples, or a couple of ways to couple a couple). If it's "pyramiding" inversely, then it's perhaps how citizens escape civil involvement by going into (exclusionary?) relationships.

Or perhaps, this was the way it's fashioned (the "motives" being so "discernible"), each couple a result of ostracism. (You are already of this democracy, so why don't you just go home and enjoy it with your husband yes?)

Pyramiding it upwards, we might recognize the couple as the start of the family which is the unit of aggrupations moving upwards to the first line where it becomes a component of the state. That customary "Man and wife" has always bothered me, and I'm glad this poem brought it up. Just playing around with it surfaces so much thought on socially supported gender roles in marriage: "Husband and wife," "Man and woman," "Man and wife," "Husband and woman."

Which is the decoy? Man or woman? Their married alter egos (husband / wife)? And (as you've pointed out) what's the decoy for? What's it defending against? (Or, what's being hunted?)

As usual, a rich Ashbery sample, one able to hold so many readings. I can imagine a reading of "Decoy" framed by a question such as: Is the marriage a foundation of the state or a defense against it? Which might also be re-framed according to your question: Is the marriage a foundation of the state (ie, the first two) or a defense against it (ie, the last two)?

—

I think we're more used to the idea that a state harnesses us as individuals to make it run. That's the default setting, well at least for me, and of course before this poem where it seems we should look into how power takes relationships, rewrites these social scripts in favor of keeping the status (or, if we go by the line on "memoranda," perhaps it enlists us to properly rewrite these ourselves as "the common good," in the service of "invisible" elite interests).

You're right that we ought to look who the original declaration ostracized, what it kept in to make the nation work but did not arm with the full complement of political power otherwise enjoyed by the peers, the white menfolk enjoying equality (and the idea of equality) on the leather cushions of their boy's club.

—
—

And below, something from the internet to punctuate that!
(Though that hidden line seems to ostracize everyone anyway)

—
—
—

Maybe the poem also somehow explores a possible declaration of independence from the marriage construct, or at least the aspect of it that is "seen into" by the state (statistics office, joint taxes, licenses, certificates), just one thing among the bureaucratic process envisioned here as a flight of documents. It's also guarantee of state power: each marriage a reduction of possible individual threats to a household adhering to state-sanctioned values (a pledge toward civic duty, keeping the peace, socio-economic mobility).

—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—

Pound's next line—CONTRA NATURAM—seems also a point both poems share. Things are not as they should be, love reduced to a socio-economic contract, people kept in offices, the violence bottled in these "moral" compartments spilling out into the streets. Which in turn gives the state more reason to exist, to keep the peace, maintain order, so forth.

—
—
—
—
—
—
—

"Decoy" might also be commenting on the notion of a poem as something representational. How a representation does not necessarily share the same function as the thing on which it was modeled.

Take the "perpetrators" and their notations. It looks like they're city planners or the staff of politicians or bussinessfolk. But the memoranda that "take" (the line cut as it is on "take" sounds like insidious somethings have so easily been jotted down against the interests of others) will go on to take "Invisible form in the air, like flocks of sparrows"—a curious turn toward the type of language we're used to seeing in traditional poetry. Are these "perpetrators" also poets? Or are poets, working as they do over documents (of a different sort, given) "decoys" for the "perpetrators," looking enough like the ducks to be hunted, courting their eyes, going for the kill in circles, in what seems to be wholesome somersaults in language but in truth aimless "turning" (the etymology of verse)" directed by discernible motives"?

An aside: That whole last part of the first stanza reminds me of Stevens in his office, plying his trade and lunching on poetry on the same "vast" desk.

—

I think a purely A=B approach would limit our reading of a poem like this, but yes, this is that time when flags are being burned, the US national anthem re-strung, everything's being made less sacrosanct. Down with pedestals! Free love!

The Chirico sample also makes explicit the operations of art, makes visible hidden/perspectival lines and the artist's model. This makes for all sorts of thinking, about how something that betrays the hidden mechanisms (of politics, of art, of poetry) can be made poetry. Even if perhaps it's painful, as maybe the exposed mechanisms will reveal (for example) that the poet has all along been complicit in the maintenance of the power structure s/he had wanted to see brought down or—at the very least—interrogated.

—
—

What a find! Takes me to a different view of (but I think very much related to) "anomalies," "political and moral," as well as "urban chaos". And yes of course, the idea of sham marriages. I'm familiar with another type of sham marriage where outsiders marry US citizens for a green card. Sometimes it's deception, sometimes there's a pay-off involved, all sorts of schemes ("itineraries").

—
—
—
—
—
—
—

That urban chaos is the problem we have been seeing into and seeing into,

Here's the usual state raison d'etre: keeping the peace. But they're not the only ones looking into the problem. The critics see urban chaos as a symptom of a greater, central problem (fundamental, even, since we're talking DOI) where methods of maintaining peace and order sometimes make the whole thing worse (abuse of power).

"Seeing into" is odd (but also refreshing). It's like a cross of "look into this" (study or investigate) or "see to this" ("man the deck," repair, take charge). Sounds mystical though, or psychic, and it's just like the Eye of Providence (which is also a pyramid!) at the back of the dollar.

—
—
—

It could be a possible device to more closely resemble the DOI. If you see there the "Facts" about/against the history of the King of Great Britain, it's a list of statements that looks much like a poem. Capital letters, left-hand side. Also the DOI was replete with capitalized nouns like "Guards" and "Despotism" and "Happiness", so perhaps this simple step was a display of slight mimicry.

—
—
—
—
—
—

Along with estrangement, I also read affluence and comfort in "wide bed". And "kicking out," how is that used? It seems to me a very eager up and at 'em sort of expression. But because of the context, I can't shake off the sense of violence.

(Answering your off point: I don't have this problem of access. Perhaps you could try other browsers whenever it gets tricky?)

—
—

It's so curious how the rhetoric and images switch constantly from contraction to expansion.

To sum up: (contraction) We are fond of plotting itineraries (expansion)
And our pyramiding memories (contraction), alert as dandelion fuzz, dart from one pretext to the next
Seeking in occasions new sources of memories, (expansion) for memory is profit (contraction)
Until the day it spreads out (expansion) in all its accumulation (contraction), delta-like, on the plain (expansion)
For that day no good can come of remembering, and the anomalies cancel each other out. (contraction)
But until then foreshortened memories (contraction) will keep us going, alive, one to the other.

That last set of phrases seem expansive to me, but it makes sense also as a summation of the inhale-exhale that's happening here.

—
—

It's increasingly sounding like an affirmation of our usual spotty memory as opposed to total recall. However, the problems suggested by the first stanza (and the last lines) seem to require more "remembering," more reflection and perhaps action based on such an "accumulation" of history.

—
—
—

Maybe diminishment itself is hopeful. Let's return to Chirico, the artist of "The Double Dream of Spring". But first, a look at another painting of his, "The Disquieting Muses" below:

Kindly mind the lines on the path from the figures in the foreground to the edifices in the backdrop. Eleven lines, seven of which are in the light. In usual geometry (Euclidean), lines as these on the road ought to be parallel (like the sides of a bed). Ideally, two lines in parallel (as in our couple?) would run along forever side by side without ever meeting (far apart).

That's in geometry. However, if you apply that in composition, you would never have the depth that our visual sense affords us (seeing into and seeing into). So when an artist depicts a parallel, the lines move toward each other. Seen this way, a road (or a bed) would look more like a chopped off triangle (or pyramid, chopped off too, as in the dollar) than a rectangular block.

What's chopped off is the point where these parallel lines meet: the vanishing point. It's there in the pencils and you could trace it with a ruler (ex: the vanishing point in "The Disquieting Muses" sits somewhere above the first left-hand tower of that red-brown edifice). In this sense, it's more hopeful in the artist's composition rather than in actual geometry (at least they meet at some point, right?). It could perhaps be both optimistic and pessimistic at the same time, because the lines hold both possibilities: your eyes could move toward (see into) the vanishing point (receding into the common nothing) or down the base of the triangle, which means you're approaching yourself as a viewer.

Anyway, the trade-off if you choose composition over geometry is total recall. Geometry would show you everything, all the points in the lines, but none of them will meet. Composition gives you hope, yes, as it implies a meeting point. But it is only ever a hope, the meeting point undisclosed. And even if it were, that's the place you disappear into.

Or, the place where you "spring" from, depending on your perspective. Which is why I believe your point here is key.

Descending code of values, has moved right across the road from total financial upheaval
And caught regression head-on. The descending scale does not imply

In "Decoy," this road (these parallel lines) seems to be a place of loss. Memory, livelihood, and values (and later on, relationships, perhaps society also by "extension").

In "The Double Dream of Spring" we have (at least!) two frames. Both are blue, but let's call one the inner frame (the smaller one, the one housing a sketch) and the other the outer frame (the bigger one, which includes the dummy, the clouds, and the inner frame). I was about to say that the outer frame includes everything, but that would be wrong. Half the white figure stands outside the frame, part of the dummy's head too. What's definitely outside both frames is the vanishing point of the brown "road". In fact, the point is doubly cut-off by the inner and outer frames.

I put "road" in quotes because it only seems a road in the right-hand side of the painting, relative to the building and the mountains and the "diminished" couple (or cacti shaped suspiciously like a couple of people in conversation). On the left hand side, it seems like the wings or legs of the easel, the beam of which cuts the composition in half and shoots upward through to the vanishing point.

"Decoy" seems to begin at the base (society/history) and is chopped off at a smaller unit (a couple/memory). It's incomplete, the future, a child, would have completed the triangle. We don't have the reason for so wide a bed, whatever the bureaucracy had been building up to. It's being avoided, like a central, defining topic that a couple (or state) can't speak of out of fear that everything would descend into chaos, unravel (dénouement, which also points to Freytag's pyramid).

Completion, however, would have also defeated the illusion. The whole poem might possible be a decoy for this unseen, this missing value.

—

Hi, and thank you for asking. I went to a technical school and enjoyed the luxury of drafting lessons (learned more about parallel lines and vanishing points later on, when I tried to draw comic books). Also, I guess I've been lucky with art teachers in general. Never amounted to more than a hobbyist though, and so I must redirect you to Wikipedia—

Vanishing point
Parallel lines
Foreshortening

(Which might mean half an hour more of time away from work! Sorry in advance!)

I would have missed these connections had I faced the bare poem, that is, without the benefit of your discursive frame of the collection and without a trace of your reading which finds the poem "ultimately hopeful" and "very positive". Admittedly your takeaway is contrary to mine (mine's pessimistic; odds had been stacked against the couple at the outset). But I wanted to see what you were seeing. This "double dream" of a poem somehow makes that exploration possible as everything now is clearly but a matter of perspective.

—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—

I remember reading about that affair in a comic book...

...which sees to that as well as other great contradictions in the days and thoughts (and pursuits) of Jefferson.

—
—
—

While the violets bunched then pinned to the dress appear to be a corsage. So the man/wife had been in the works the whole time.

—

Whitmen

Hello Whitmanians (and anti-Whitmanians?)  let's see how far Walt's influence extends. Maybe we'll find surprising connections along the way. We know that Emerson greeted him as he would the sun. Ginsberg gave him a (bit?) role in one of our poems for the week. He's even said to be Bram Stoker's model for Count Dracula.

There must be many others. Gerard Manley Hopkins, for one: "I always knew in my heart Whitman's mind to be more like my own than any man's living. As he is a very great scoundrel, this is not a pleasant confession."

—

Hope you'll add to this collection, and maybe re-read some WW lines along the way.

—

Thanks very much. Read this before but had long forgotten about it, which is good because it seems so fresh now after rounds of ModPo. Entranced with "pig-headed father" for some reason, having in it the image of a son leaving farm roots to make a name for himself ("carving") in the city. That done, he's making "commerce"—something which promises reunion but maintains distance.

The "pig-headed" part recalls lines from Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"—

It is not you alone who know what it is to be evil;  
I am he who knew what it was to be evil;  
I too knitted the old knot of contrariety,  
Blabb’d, blush’d, resented, lied, stole, grudg’d,  
Had guile, anger, lust, hot wishes I dared not speak,  
Was wayward, vain, greedy, shallow, sly, cowardly, malignant;  
The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me,

—

Here's a bit more of the letters themselves. Apparently there's been some poetry and fiction using this material.

—
—

Hi, and thanks for this question. I've done some reading (but it seems "some reading" won't ever be enough to cover even an aspect of a poet like Pound), and so far, I believe that the "condensed" parts of Pound's writing, his involvement with imagism (as opposed to later vorticism, his epic poetry, the Cantos) was influenced by Asian forms. For example, much has been said about the haiku-like quality (as well as wild innovation) of poems such as his "In a Station of the Metro". I haven't read him acknowledging ED.

For now, I'm following some dates. Imagism was being created at around 1911-1912. Pound would produce essays regarding its principles 1913. The anthology Des Imagistes (perhaps the more proper coming out of Imagism as a collective / collected effort) would see light as a standalone by 1914.

What was the ED available at this time? ED's first collection would have been available since 1890, 20 years prior to Pound's essays on imagism. However, let's note that the only ED available back then were heavily edited: "The two editors made changes to the poems, regularizing punctuation, adding occasional titles, and sometimes altering words to improve rhyme or sense." It seems ED would only truly "dazzle"— assuming the form we see her poems now, her fascicles treated as final intent rather than drafts—in the 1955 collection.

1955 would see Pound detained in a psychiatric hospital after charges of treason during the war, some 17 years remaining in his life. ED was available to him, but if he owed her anything he was not as loud about it as he was with the Whitman "parentage".

Will be scouring the annotations to the Pisan Cantos next week and will be sure to return here if I find any ED-EP connection.

—

I don't feel the antagonism myself. But I think it's possible to encounter these two and see them warring inside you. I think it's in the way a reader or writer absorbs the two. You could devote yourself fully to one, perhaps becoming critical of other paths (ex: Whitman's too wild or Dickinson's too solipsistic, etc) or you could nurture both in your use of literature, which is in keeping also with some things we found in both (Whitman's open to contradicting himself, Dickinson's keen on swerving from the groove).

—
—

Yes "apparition" is such a tricky part of this. I'm sure others would argue how essential it is to the lines, but it also pushed me to think about the imagist call for the "exact word" especially if the phenomenon is itself inexact, too fleeting that it seems an "exact word" would somehow violate it. The haiku seems to me not only a form but also a state of mind. Do you think Pound's lines amounted to a failed attempt at a (new?) haiku?

—

Eel soup! Found Dharker's tantalizing poem, and it engages (interrogates?) this age old quest for Flaubert's le mot juste.

—

Agreed. It moves along with the moment, all that anxiety, perhaps alarm, maybe also a sense of promise, and she's shuffling with words, finding one that fits, one that will ultimately decide her next course of action: flee or fight or receive.

—
—

(Digression, sorry, but I love how cutting it as a usual haiku makes "petals" sound like a verb.)

—
—
—

"I think there was a better poem to be written." You may be right. It seems to me that if EP was to make a choice between poem+prose and poem-as-is, he'd take the longer version. He'll discard imagism for vorticism, his hokku yileding to (or absorbed into) the Cantos.

Anyway, it's important to add that even the root of the haiku tradition includes a haiku-prose variety called the haibun by Matsuo Bashō.

—

Apparition becomes a sort of fleeting appearance if we remove the supernatural. Should we remove though?

—

Joy. I'm taking that for you the poem was breathing fresh air into the transit scene?

—
—
—

How two lines could overflow as sound, image, meaning.

—
—

I'll direct you to a list like this if I see one. Or please, if you make one, tell me and I'll subscribe immediately. I'm afraid I'm only familiar with the Dickinsonians in the syllabus: Armantrout, Niedecker, Corman. I'm sure others will come up for me if I "read outwards" but it seems that when I'm dealing with Dickinson and her heirs, my tendency is to look deeply into their work rather than pick up on things and links that throw me off the groove (very un-ED of me, now that I think of it).

—
—

His soil rich under both Pound's Cantos and Neruda's Canto General.

—
—
—
—

From this Twain letter: "You shall see marvels upon marvels added to these whose nativity you have witnessed; & conspicuous above them you shall see their formidable Result — Man at almost his full stature at last! — & still growing, visibly growing while you look." 

How very difficult it is for me (and it seems, for Ginsberg) to share this optimism. Still, how very infectious and "true" the way they sound it.

—
—

Seems "father and son" had different Americas. I wonder about the relation though: could Ginsberg's America be the betrayal of its predecessor's hopes? or, could Whitman's America be the cause of the next America's despair? Did Ginsberg omit this discussion? Did he submerge it in the river Lethe?

—

He's projecting his loneliness then, seeing a national malaise?

—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—

Following you above, I think Ginsberg's conjuring WW as Dante did Virgil, making a guide out of his idol but at the same time making sure that the idol's less capable than he is (Virgil could not go beyond to Paradise because his limits lay in reason, neither baptized nor equipped to receive grace, whereas WW was out of touch, maybe out of kilter in a newer, less invigorated America).

—
—
—
—

And how very different the ground of Ginsberg and that of Whitman. Ginsberg's shoes on a tiled floor, the produce and the cattle etc sorted or packed for easy, thoughtless consumption. Thanks.

—

What do you think Ginsberg was trying to achieve by asking a forgetful (though not forgotten) graybeard?

—
—
—
—
—
—
—

Not overboard, no! I think this is all about that brand of bizarre. That's as direct a link as a poet would claim of another. And it's in keeping with the conceit of "Song of Myself": what I assume, you shall assume. And here's Ginsberg assuming Whitman, soul and all.

—
—

Would Whitman have loved such a boom as you described? I imagine Sandburg at home with with smoke and steel. But I wonder about Whitman, the limits of his inclusiveness, his idea of democracy.

—
—

Ginsberg apparently carries a less affirmative view of the banks compared to Whitman. Where WW found life, industry, and democracy, Ginsberg saw death, alienation, and democracy. The death too of WW, therefore: as man and a savage set of poetics.

—
—

"in the parking lot, waiting for you." That's a killer, and there were about two couplets there, one I loved:

              self. That common moment, unguarded,  
              skin to skin, why didn’t it make us change?  

—
—
—
—

Same goes for me. Thanks for the Reines. Clicked your links and, yes! You're right. If there's only a way to subscribe to your exclamation points, I'd click that as well.

—

Another acknowledged Whitmanian is Muriel Rukeyser. Fond of how she takes poetry to dark places. This leads to a sample

       :  Take my hand.          Fist my mind in your hand.          What are you now?

—

Just discovered she's in ModPoPlus! Have also (just) begun compiling my postModPo destinations. ModPoPlus, the teaching forum, Rukeyser, and Reines are all in the bag.

—
—
—

Happy when this happens to me. It means I'm still alive and connected, and that I (yet) have freedom to change my mind, legroom for exploration.

—

From Mark Strand:

“Through you I shall be born again; myself again and again; myself without others; myself with a tomb; myself beyond death. I imagine you taking my name; I imagine you saying 'myself myself' again and again. And suddenly there will be no blue sky or sun or shape of anything without that simple utterance.”

Who deserves his place in this thread too if we believe Gregerson calling him one of Whitman's “most astute heirs and readers.” Farewell, Mark Strand. 

—

Notes on John Ashbery’s “A Blessing in Disguise”

Yes, they are alive and can have those colors,
But I, in my soul, am alive too.
I feel I must sing and dance, to tell
Of this in a way, that knowing you may be drawn to me.

And I sing amid despair and isolation
Of the chance to know you, to sing of me
Which are you. You see,
You hold me up to the light in a way

I should never have expected, or suspected, perhaps
Because you always tell me I am you,
And right. The great spruces loom.
I am yours to die with, to desire.

I cannot ever think of me, I desire you
For a room in which the chairs ever
Have their backs turned to the light
Inflicted on the stone and paths, the real trees

That seem to shine at me through a lattice toward you.
If the wild light of this January day is true
I pledge me to be truthful unto you
Whom I cannot ever stop remembering.

Remembering to forgive. Remember to pass beyond you into the day
On the wings of the secret you will never know.
Taking me from myself, in the path
Which the pastel girth of the day has assigned to me.

I prefer “you” in the plural, I want “you”
You must come to me, all golden and pale
Like the dew and the air.
And then I start getting this feeling of exaltation.

*

—

Possibly, the poem itself is speaking, the conceit being its possession of soul, life, an I. “You must come to me, all golden and pale” reminds me of Corman’s “It isnt for want”.

       I feel I must sing and dance, to tell
       Of this in a way, that knowing you may be drawn to me.

I get from this a way for a poem to mean things, this poem’s particular way, which is emotive, seeking immediacy (like Whitman). That line containing “knowing you may be drawn to me” could mean a couple of different “ways” depending on the which word takes emphasis. Again, these accents are their own defense... (or, in this case: disguise)

—

Let me submit a candidate for a paraphrase of those lines. That our “slant” of light, our personal angle, brings to the poem something neither anticipated nor imagined by the poet (or the poem). What’s amazing here is the tone, it could be matter-of-fact (ex: you always have a way of thinking about these things). Could it also be celebratory? Maybe not as explicitly as Whitman’s. In the end, we’re projecting ourselves into all these lines. The poem doesn’t demean that I think (doesn’t say: you’re just telling me I am you), but it doesn’t go all out Whitman either (What I assume, you shall assume).

So this is just me (as “always”) projecting my desires and anxieties onto / alongside / prompted by the openness of this poem.

Upon rereading, that considered shift from expected to “suspected” jumps out.

—

Exactly how it is for me too. The lines that take me there are “I pledge me to be truthful unto you / Whom I cannot ever stop remembering” and “Which the pastel girth of the day has assigned to me” though it’s still as puzzling as ever, yet something I accepted, as the “wings of the secret never to be known.” I mean sure, okay, as long as we’re flying there.

And we do.

—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—

“Remembering to forgive. Remember to pass beyond you into the day” Recalling Janus now as old Rome’s marker between wartime and peacetime.

—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—

Colors. I was thinking that the poem could be referring to things other than poetry (prosaic things perhaps, following the Dickinson exploration), the other things that preoccupy us. Colors might mean visual enticements. Might also mean allegiances, as in flags.

It hums well with the play of light throughout the poem, and the room with all those weirdly oriented chairs. Makes me think of the stained-glass that adorn cathedrals.

—

Props to versatility. He has very short ones too (found a handful), gems of wit and whimsy. That compare and contrast thread sounds like a good idea, but then I don’t think you’re capable of a bad idea. Ashbery’s curated by deft, able hands in these halls.

—
—

Today’s rereading of the poem, along with your comments, yield me a sense of contentment. To feel the presence of something deeper and unsayable, but also to be at peace with the fact that you'll never ever know, never ever see.

—
—
—
—

Perfect! And Gillig does mash-ups. Thanks!

—
—
—
—
—

Your comment on Ashbery’s plural “you” takes me back to Whitman’s large, multitudes-I. 

“A Blessing in Disguise” seems a direct response to “Song of Myself”. The title of one can be written over the other, blessing-as-song / song-as-blessing (an understanding of the Whitmanian project: generous offering, promise of plenitude, illumination), self-as-disguise, disguise-as-self (a re-appreciation of “the persona” or masked-I that Whitman overtly wished to strike against, strike off, trying to eliminate the you/I distinction—resulting however, or perhaps it was Whitman’s design all along—in increasing I/I distinctions, creating a great many selves that “contradict myself”).

I found some references to grass (the image elected to serve for/as Whitman’s conceit). Following the light downward “inflicted on the stone and paths, the real trees / That seem to shine at me toward you” I see “you” as the grass.

“The pastel girth of the day,” the sun's halo or its effect, which for the I seems to be illumination but for the you, age and decay, as in the beauty of leaves of grass wilting, "“all golden and pale”.

So perhaps our Ashbery has found a way (or ways, or guises, or poetics) toward Whitman as one who “most honors” him, one “who learns under it to destroy the teacher.”

—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—

Hi. The lines were from Whitman’s “Song of Myself”:

       I am the teacher of athletes,
       He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own,
       He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.

A really strong passage regarding influence. He’s making a contest out of it. Even if one of his athletes (Ginsberg, Ashbery, Pessoa, Pound) were to best Whitman, their feat would only serve to prove the worth of their teacher.

Ashbery asserts himself, registers “despair and isolation,” but also (I think) expresses his gratitude, singing and dancing his “I” to show how much he had learned.

—

Thanks for the opportunity you opened. When the Buddha was quoted, I remembered Freud’s reflection on Oedipus where a young man’s passage into manhood was seen as an elaborate rite of killing his father. The father’s shadow threatens the growth of the boy, a sense I get from these lines:

       And right. The great spruces loom.
       I am yours to die with, to desire.

—

Yes, that whole (grand!) Greek business of sons killing fathers, fathers eating sons. If only an opt-out were possible. Maybe JA was attempting something like that here.

—
—
—
—
—
—

I don’t wish to reduce Ashbery to Whitman (as Whitman already seems ever eager to absorb everything into Whitman), but let me see how far I get reading with everyone here taking WW as my slant of light.

(Which is just my way of saying please don't get too annoyed.)

So perhaps “they” here refers to grass, all the colors they wear through the various seasons (JA: “golden and pale”) but also all the colors they absorb by way of earth and decay (WW: “among black folks as among white, Canuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff...”). Therefore, “they” might echo all those multitudes within Whitman large I.

JA's second line seems an assertion of itself (of the poem) “But I, in my soul, am alive too.” When WW says “I loafe and invite my soul,” he’s inviting the reader, but the reader who has at least partially accepted being of or with WW’s “I”. But while JA seems willing to loafe (even fly), he also wishes to retain his self, his soul.

This, in spite of WW’s (forgivable) claims upon him.

—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—

Yes and yes to you. This is happy work for me too. Glad you brought up Crane and Rimbaud. These I shall now read (with amatory Martory) alongside our JA.

—
—
—

       Let’s keep knotted kisses to ourselves for a long time
       Until another day erases
       The trace of each passing.

Hello, Martory! Glad to make your acquaintance.

—

Yes, and more:

       the clear distances of the city the factories without smoke
       bathed as at their birth stammered
       a trial hello
       that only ended however
       in this word round as a doubloon
       placed on the edge of that day
       by a considerate friend
       the sun on your arms naked against my cheeks

Thanks!

—

Yes, we found a lot here that could also go to the context/culture thread The many accents of his French connection, JA’s friendships, his translation work. I also found a link or two here from you and Jon for those who’d like to read more articles about him.

—

A good new image to work with. Perhaps the learning to be done’s waiting outside?

—

Snake in the garden? I like your point about his phrases too, stuff like

Yes, 
You see,
or suspected, perhaps
And right.

And I wonder how essential they are to his poems. These seem like the kind of phrases you’ll be asked to cut out in poetry workshops. But they contribute to a tentativeness, a sense of the open path, we can walk whichever way our feet might lead us.

—
—
—

Delicious. And I hope that my last thought before the first night of this new year will be an imagination of these mighty, unperceived trees.

—
—
—
—
—
—
—

Mention was made of isolation and despair. Those could be the trials we’re looking for. Or those could be consequences of those trials.

Backtracking to the Greeks, we have Prometheus presenting two packages to the gods. These were proposals, two prototypes, one of which would decide the type sacrifices man would thereafter be required to burn to earn divine favor (ie, blessings). Wiki has it:

Prometheus slew a large ox, and divided it into two piles. In one pile he put all the meat and most of the fat, skillfully covering it with the ox’s grotesque stomach, while in the other pile, he dressed up the bones artfully with shining fat. Prometheus then invited Zeus to choose; Zeus chose the pile of bones.

Blessing in disguise here could be the nourishing meat secured in the “grotesque stomach,” which could be a way of looking at the human lot. Or, at poetry as a thing to be unwrapped, laid bare, consumed.

—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—

A take on the question of intent, though I don’t think it’ll be answering any of the questions above except for “What do you think?”

Attracted to poets who are concerned with opening their work, making sure it is intrinsically many things for many people and many things also for one very studious reader. Maybe because this poet is in touch with the fact that the making of a thing (poem, Nobel’s dynamite, rice cake, treatise) does not arise from only one cause but from many, that the process perhaps partakes from even her smallest desire, her secret anxiety.

This is what I love about Dickinson and Stein, Niedecker and Perelman. If, at the outset, the intent is for a poem to mean in many directions, then we’re cool. A poet might very well react to a reader’s surprising (brain-beyond-the-groove) reading with lines like Ashbery’s:

       You hold me up to the light in a way
       I should never have expected, or suspected, perhaps

Most of the writers I know are prosaic in the sense that the work must mean one thing (often referred to as “the main idea”), must get us to the point in the shortest, most memorable route possible, and yes, it’s an indispensable way of composing. It runs industries, assembles the broiler, constitutes nations, etc. But it would be impoverishment were that the only way to do poetry.

For writers like that, one-track and fabulously so, I try to honor them by getting their intent and nodding my head repeatedly. But for others like Ashbery, I can really just walk around. That’s his gift. I could try to get his intent without that having to be the point, like a game of chess in the context of a wide-open afternoon, so winning is not the thing, the sunset is.

Even when Ashbery tries to explain a poem of his, he words it carefully so that it sounds as if he’s just one reader of the poem (just so happens he’s also the writer). He just got to the poem before everybody else, but we can all have a look-see. And it’s poems like his “These Lacustrine Cities” and “A Blessing in Disguise” (charged with the writer's intent, but welcoming of the reader’s intent and—paraphrasing you in the webcast—moment and temperament) that make possible such northern lightly, quantum physical, mystically humming threads as these.

—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—

Usapang Oppen

Nitong Enero lang, nagkaroon kami ni Hani Julien ng daldalang online tungkol sa tulang "If It All Went Up in Smoke" ni George Oppen. Nakakuha akong permiso upang ilabas ang kanyang bahagi ng balitaktakan. Simulan natin sa mismong tula:

that smoke
would remain

the forever
savage country poem's light borrowed

light of the landscape and one's footprints praise

from distance
in the close
crowd all

that is strange the sources

the wells the poem begins

neither in word
nor meaning but the small
selves haunting

us in the stones and is less

always than that help me I am
of that people the grass

blades touch

and touch in their small

distances the poem
begins

D— Oppen! Pwede ka nang bumuo ng sariling poetics (for life) based on these three lines alone: "neither in word / nor meaning but the small / selves haunting"

H— Lakas maka-meta nito ser. Kaaliw. Yung mga putol at pag-hold back, bits and pieces ng thoughts at imagery, at yan ngang, "small / selves haunting," brings to mind yung idea ng poetry as the subject of itself. Parang lutang lang at "we are infinite" ang peg sa kabuuan. Hehe

D— yung meta talaga nito, hindi maiiwasan. poetry does not merely represent experience, but is itself experience. kaso parang kalahati lang ng tula kung hindi matitingnan yung mga bahaging hindi naman (entirely) solipsistic. tulad nung from distance / in the close / crowd all. i suppose distance is subject position, tas yung "close" ay yung tula? pero, ayun nga: "crowd all" so either isinisiksik sa tula ang lahat o umaalagwa ang tula sa pangkalahatan. well, ang saya, tama ka, holding back. kaya ayun, ambivalence. so heto i'm looking at "distances the poem" in at least two ways bec of your "we are infinite"

H— Ka-inspire nga po yung comment ng tula sa proseso ng pagtula na ginagawa na niya mismo sa tula.

"the sources

the wells the poem begins
neither in word
nor meaning but the small
selves haunting"

Habang yung tula e mukhang nagho-holdback lang kaya nagpuputol, pwede ring kine-cleanse nya yung sarili nya, sini-sift o pina-pound, "us in the stones and is less" tas yung mga susunod na linya, ayan na, "blades touch / and touch in their small / distances the poem / begins," as if sinasabi na pag nasala na yung moments, at ang meron ka na lang ay view nung mga maliliit na pagitan between blades of grass touching in small distances--parang ito rin yung "crowd all" na nagsisiksikan and yet umaalagwa--sa ganyang kondisyon lumalabas yung poem na "infinite". Hehe. Tas ang reader, mare-realize na nga lang na parang buhay buhay lang din ito.

Stray observation: yung "of that people the grass / blades touch", reference din po kaya kay Whitman?

D— tiyak yun! people of the grass ang dating sa akin niyan, so poets esp of the whitmanian stripe. or pwede ring artists in general in the sense of grass = jutes, haha

digress lang, pero ang dating sa akin nung blades touch at saka nung siwang sa pagitan ng blades (small distances) ay parang yung unang image dito sa some trees ni ashbery, yung mga dahon ng puno, tsaka yung siwang sa pagitan nila na sabay at mutual ang konsepto ng distance at joining (at na sa mutuality na ito ibinabase ang tula, kung hindi pa nga mismo ang lahat ng talastasang posible)

Some Trees
by John Ashbery

These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees try

To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.

And glad not to have invented
Some comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges

A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Place in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.

H— "Merely being there" bilang communication. Communicating in silence/stillness, or more of, ang communication ay nangyayari with and within their context (the trees' distance and joining). Their being in a position where they are "far this morning / From the world as agreeing / With it, you and I" ay conversation and the conversation is communicating something.

Curious yung pagsulpot ng second person, "you and I". Pwedeng "poet and reader," or "poet and a specific person." Pero pwedeng character lang din naman ito tinuturing as in "agreeing / with it, you and I", and not necessarily the poet breaking the nth wall.

Pero ang pinakamabentang mensahe e yung pag-juxtapose sa emergence ng noise, happy noises, in fact, and yet the kind na hindi nagko-communicate the way the stillness--the joining and aloofness--of the trees does. Pasalamat pala tayo sa trees, poetry, art! Dahil without art, ang matitira na lang sa earth ay "eh". Haha

Sa kabilang dako, ang sakit sa bangs lang magbasa, parang kelangan naka-squint ka lagi na parang may sinisipat sa pagitan ng trees. Hehe

Re: Whitman at "grass people". Iba rin yata ang tama ng leaves kay Oppen kasi matahimik at naghoholdback unlike Whitman, at iba pang alagad, for example, Ginsberg.

D— objectivism daw ang diskarte ni Oppen. pag-aaralan ko pa lang ito at hindi ko pa lubusang maipapaliwanag, pero mukhang malaki ang utang nito sa imagism nina williams, pound, et al at ng modernism nina eliot, pound et al na parehong imposible kung wala si whitman. pero itong mga spare versification na andaming gaps, mukhang mga anak ni dickinson ang mga ganyan. nga lang, (pa)intimate masyado ang grass ni whit: what i assume you shall assume, na clearly hindi (lamang) ito ang stance na gusto ni Oppen (at baka rin ni ashbery, at least sa some trees) may distances daw dapat, may squinting of eyes effect (ika mo nga). at yun parang naghanap sila ng form na makukuha yung sense na yun ng distance plus communion . . . or better yet, (baka) distance plus recognition of distance (poetry?) equals communion. kaya heto ang mga gaps, masasayang enjambment. pero may mga tinanggal ding espasyo kay oppen dahil walang punctuation (of that people the grass)

or art mismo ang communion/solidarity, hence ... "Dahil without art, ang matitira na lang sa earth ay 'eh'."

H— Iba pa ba ito sa objectivism ni Ayn Rand? HAHA. Kasi I assume ibang-iba. LOL

Defensive yung Wikipedia entry: "Note that while the name is similar to Ayn Rand's school of philosophy, the two movements are not affiliated, and are, in fact, radically different." Haha *basa*

D— took me some time to find this, but oppen's ballad gives us what could be a very overt anti-academic stance ("The rocks outlived the classicists") that was to be a sort of objectivist seal

Ballad
by George Oppen

Astrolabes and lexicons
Once in the great houses—

A poor lobsterman

Met by chance
On Swan's Island

Where he was born
We saw the old farmhouse

Propped and leaning on its hilltop
On that island
Where the ferry runs

A poor lobsterman

His teeth were bad

He drove us over that island
In an old car

A well-spoken man

Hardly real
As he knew in those rough fields

Lobster pots and their gear
Smelling of salt

The rocks outlived the classicists,
The rocks and the lobstermen's huts

And the sights of the island
The ledges in the rough sea seen from the road

And the harbor
And the post office

Difficult to know what one means
—to be serious and to know what one means—

An island
Has a public quality

His wife in the front seat

In a soft dress
Such as poor women wear

She took it that we came—
I don't know how to say, she said—

Not for anything we did, she said,
Mildly, 'from God'. She said

What I like more than anything
Is to visit other islands...

H— May naaalala po ako dito na tula na nabuklat sa isang high school textbook sa Calamba (CEGP activity yon. Haha). Not sure kung Teo Antonio pero kilalang makata ito. Basta ang title nya ay parang "Ang Paaralan" o "Ang Aking Paaralan" tas ang nagsasalita ay mangingisda, kinekwento yung experience at mga aral nya sa laot, tipong, ang kanyang lapis ay [insert pamalakaya tool/terminology], ang kanyang papel ay [insert same same]. Traditional ballad sigurong maituturing yung pagkekwento though di ko na pinansin ang form. (Kinopya ko sa isang notebook yun, hanapin ko later for comparison. Hehe)

Ang curious ako ulit ay sa kumento nya sa proseso/experience ng pagsulat at pagbasa ng tula at sa panulaan mismo. Mas klaro at walang bitiw sa imagery ito sa kabuuan e, kumpara dun sa "If It All Went Up in Smoke" at "Some Trees." Tempting na sundan lang yung kwento/anecdote, at of course, talinghaga. But no. Can't be. Masangsang ang simoy sa isla.

So I had to Wiki and relearn ballad at i-explore pa yung historical context. Haha. Obviously, hindi pormang ballad yung tula pero yung subject matter, bilang anecdote nga ng rural life, ay pam-ballad. Then na-realize ko na mas hindi pa nga yun ang fishy e. Mas yung public character ng ballad versus canon/classics, at yung irony na ang ballad naman bilang porma ay galing din sa lab ng academe tas na-popularize (not sure about this but if it's the other way around, ang klaro e yung porma pa rin ay isang tradition/convention at hindi natural na paraan ng pag-objectify sa mundo).

So ang anti-academic stance ay yung dunong mula sa islang ito, sa mga batuhang ito, na hindi maitatanggi ng poor lobsterman who "knew in those rough fields / Lobster pots and their gear / Smelling of salt", na "The rocks outlived the classicists," etcetera. Narito ang mga salita, ang mga panukat... na kahit yung poet ay mahihirapang gagapin kung hindi danas (very Whitmanian, I think).

Kaya dun sa part na nagsalita na yung wife, alam na natin kung paano kinaaadikan at dyino-dyos ang public quality ng isla pero at the same time, gusto ring takasan/layasan ito. (LSS! Argh.)

"She took it that we came—
I don't know how to say, she said—

Not for anything we did, she said,
Mildly, 'from God'. She said

What I like more than anything
Is to visit other islands..."

At ang pagtakas/paglayas, kahit pansamantala, ay kita na rin sa kung paano ito ginawa ng tula sa sarili nya. (mga dash, napuputol na train of thought, lumilipad na isip, etc.)

I guess yun din yung objectivist seal? Gawing guinea pig ang mismong tula ng stance/poetics/politics? Tulad ng "Our days put on such reticence / These accents seem their own defense." ni Ashbery kung saan ang "still performance"/siwang at joining (these accents) ng trees, which I assume, ang tula, and being that this whole canvas is in itself an object, is also its own defense?

Whew. Parang gusto ko muna pradyekin yung mga imagist. Hindi ko pa nabasa si Ezra Pound, mas Williams lang pero hindi ganito kadugo. Haha

D— madugo rin si williams, pero so far mas gusto ko ang "dugo" ni oppen. maganda yung pagbasa mo sa ballad at sa pag-angkin ng piyesang ito sa pormang iyon. gusto ko talaga na biglang nagsalita yung wife, pagkatapos ng pa-astrolabe effect ni poet, ng pagpokus sa lobsterman at sa isla, biglang nagsalita na yung wife na kung tutuusin bukod sa gustong umalis ay gusto ring maranasan naman ang maging turista, ang maging perceiver i suppose as opposed to just perceived (by tourist, classicist, and even the oppen persona . . . baka nga pati ng lobsterman hubby nya)

H— Bukod sa gustong umalis ay maranasan ang maging turista. Hehe. Oo nga. Ayos. Hindi ko pa naman nabasa si Williams nang masinsinan bilang imagist, more of leisurely lang in comparison kay Whitman, which was such a relief. Haha. Nahatak lang talaga ako nung Oppen poem. Intense.

And by no man, these verses

                         cAnto

                              Pound

                                      archive hOme newsletters my

                         Up

                                        & amp; Ndash; login poetry

                 calleD

                 (versiOn

                              Flash

                             Free

"transparent"); so.addparam("aLlowscriptaccess",

                            "Ezra

                                 Sorry

               copyrigHt

I generated this mesostomatic by using an online program on Pound's Canto XLIX, or, more specifically, a particular webpage that displays the poem along with a bibliographical note on Ezra Pound.

What was my involvement? I inputted the choice of poem, which webpage to use. Aside from this seed text, I also thought of what spine to put in, and after many tries, I came upon a possible (perhaps petty) application of Shakespeare upon Ezra's name (A Pound of Flesh). The computer generated ten possibilities (and though I was aware that you could mix and match the generated lines to come up with permutations, I saw that one of the ten was the best for me and immediately extracted it).

I decided to cut the four parts ("A" "POUND" "OF" "FLESH") into couplets ("A" "PO" "UN" "DO" "FF" "LE" "SH"). While playing around with the program, I wanted to use Pound not only out of (an unrequited) love for his Pisan Cantos, but because Pound was himself a heavy "borrower," credited (Wikily) for opening up "American poetry to diverse influences, including the traditional poetries of China and Japan." I chose this particular canto because I read those "traditional poetries" in here, and also because it was one of the few cantos available online. (That's convenient! Convenient too that XLIX leads with a telling line "For the seven lakes, and by no man these verses" which echoes this project).

I picked this particular mesostomatic product from among the other results because of the "meta," almost every couplet reflecting (like seven lakes) the project of mesostics and mesostomatics. Let's look at this per line to see how that works out.

The article "A" became "cAnto" which was just fitting, almost a title, very much an assertion of the poem as an identity (as Pound's own cantos likewise asserted their structure against Dante's). "Pound" then becomes byline, but also the unit of measure, and most happily a verb acting upon "archive hOme newsletters my". And what pleasure too that this O homed in on "hOme," for this was where the action was (along with "archive" and "newsletters"), where I was doing my work, and it was also a driving question in deliberating Pound as a biography: which, in the end, was home to him? Italy or the States? Or must we resort to a formula, the true man "of letters" resides nowhere else, nowhere outside "his verses".

However: "my"? Strictly speaking, these words ("hOme," archive," and "newsletters"), do not belong to Pound (if any word could be said to "belong" to him), nor to myself, despite all my choosing. If anything, they belong to the website, to the usual language of links and headings. Thus, we've multiplied possibilities for appreciating these serendipitous intersections.

The next couplet furthers this insight. In my mind, "Up/ & amp;Ndash" follow "Pound" as verb, but this velocity could also be taken as reflective upon the reader, the computer, and the "writer".

Originally, I intended "calleD// (versiOn" as a couplet for symmetric and metapoetic reasons. However, the copy-paste process somehow wouldn't allow them to stick together no matter what program I used (Word, Notepad, Rich Text, this text field). I decided they're better off that way: separate. I charged it too to the roll of the dice, and even in this casting, I found myself lucky: for "calleD" thus abstracted from "versiOn" somehow gravitates toward "poetry," especially "login poetry" and has for me the sense of the word calling as an oracular or gospel notion (many are called, few are chosen) that resonate, again with the project. "Flash/ Free" that's how this whole thing feels, not only the luck of the draw, but also this writing about the luck of the draw (using the luck of the draw).

I hear the spine word "FLESH" out of "Flash," which is a plus because this Shakespearean transgression is the "spinal" metaphor anyway: Pound's "Flesh" on the scales, along with ours, and the poetries involved, and chance itself.

More machinespeak in "transparent"); so.addparam("aLlowscriptaccess"," yes, but also the ideas of transparency (the poem/s, the lakes, this essay vis-a-vis Pound's obscurities and conceits), along with the parameters (of this project, of Pound's, Dante's as well, perhaps Shakespeare's) making clear through "aLlowscriptaccess" the dream and aleatory processes that inform all literature, and how some literature (such as this and Cage's, MacLow's) seek to emphasize how such unreadable things come into play in all human compositions.

"Ezra// Sorry/ copyrigHt" sealed the deal for me. When I saw the computer apologizing, I said hey, this is "my" poem! I hope you find it "yours" as well.

BENEVOLENT ASSIMILATION: Mga gupit at saling-Google mula sa ilang napapanahong makata

CRANE 1871—1900
Oo, mayroon akong isang libong wika,
Kahit na ako ay nagsusumikap upang gamitin ang isa,
Ngunit patay sa aking bibig.


McKINLEY 1843—1901
Ang pagkawasak ng Spanish fleet sa daungan ng Manila sa pamamagitan ng
Panghuli, dapat ito ang maalab wish
Islands sa ilalim ng libreng bandila ng Estados Unidos.


LOWELL 1874—1925
Pininturahan ko ang isang larawan ng isang ghost
Ang mga tao ay magyumukyok
Swimming sa mga ulap.


FREYTAG-LORINGHOVEN 1874—1927
Walang spinsterlollypop para sa akin - oo - mayroon kami
Ito ay sa France - ang hangin sa linya -
Isang dosenang cocktail - mangyaring -- -- -- --


ROBINSON 1869—1935
Tuwing Richard Cory ay nagpunta down na bayan,
Upang gumawa ng sa amin nais na kami sa kanyang lugar.
Nagpunta tahanan at maglagay ng bullet sa pamamagitan ng kanyang ulo.


STEIN 1874—1946
Ano ang kasalukuyang na gumagawa ng makinarya, na ginagawang kaluskos ito,
Ano ang kasalukuyang.
Line A Tinutukoy lamang ito.


STEVENS 1879—1946
Ang mga bahay ay pinagmumultuhan
Upang managinip ng mga baboons at periwinkles.
Sa pulang panahon.


DOOLITTLE 1886—1961
Rose, malupit rosas,
sa malulutong na buhangin
hardened sa isang dahon?


FROST 1874—1963
Isang bagay na may na hindi ibigin ng pader,
Mayroon kaming gumamit ng spell upang gawing balanse:

Sabi niya muli, "Magandang fences gumawa ng magandang kapitbahay."

WILLIAMS 1883—1963
sa likod pakpak
ay lalaki kasinungalingan
bote


ELIOT 1888—1965
I
Abril ang cruellest na buwan, dumarami
Ang ginang ng bansa ng mga sitwasyon.
Sa iyo! mapagpaimbabaw lecteur!-Lun semblable,-Lun Frere! "

II
Ang upuan siya nakaupo sa, tulad ng burnished trono,
Makikita niya gusto mong malaman kung ano ang iyong na pera na ibinigay niya sa iyo
Magandang gabi, mga kababaihan, magandang gabi, matamis ladies, magandang gabi, magandang gabi.

III
Tent ang ilog ay nasira: ang huling daliri ng dahon
Saan fishmen Lounge sa tanghali: kung saan ang mga pader
nasusunog

IV
Phlebas ang Phoenician, isang labing-apat na araw patay,
At profit at pagkawala.
Isaalang-alang ang Phlebas, na ay sabay-sabay na guwapo at matangkad habang ikaw.

V
Matapos ang tanglaw-liwanag na pula sa pawisan mukha
O sa mga alaala na draped sa pamamagitan ng spider ang mabait
     
              Shantih     shantih     shantih


POUND 1885—1972
O henerasyon ng lubusan hambog
                                  Nakita ko ang kanilang mga smiles puno ng ngipin
                 at hindi kahit sariling damit.


MOORE 1887—1972
Ako, masyadong, hindi gusto ito: may mga bagay na mahalaga higit pa sa lahat ng
o magtangi laban ng 'Mga dokumento sa negosyo at
tunay, ikaw ay interesado sa tula.


RANSOM 1888—1974
Kaya kinuha niya sa kanya bilang anoint
Masarap na amoy, tikman, Heats at treasons:
At recited, "ay magaling."