Ashbery and why to read poems

The lovely conclusion from Megan Snyder-Camp's compelling reading of "Paradoxes and Oxymorons":

Ashbery reminds me why I read poems. It’s not to understand a poet’s intentions, or to get to know the poet. It’s to savor the movement of mind that comes from fully engaging with a rich poem, and tracing the edges of structures whose echoes and ghost-images will appear at surprising intersections in the days ahead, working themselves through in my mind. Work, in that context—the work of bridging gaps, navigating a sharp turn, weighing one thing against another—feels like play. I get lost in it, I resurface, I dive back down. I show up muddy to lunch. I’m not trying to get exactly out of the poem what the poet put in; I’m certain that I won’t. What I get, rather, is exactly what I need, which shifts with each reading. I need a structure strong, engaging, and open enough to lead me beyond my own expectations into an exploration of what it truly means for one word, or idea, or person to connect to another—a chain of those connections strong enough, and flexible enough, to swing out over the vastness of possibility.

I'm normally not one for reader response, but this seems like the way to go--especially her description of the mind working at the "edges of structures whose echoes and ghost-images will appear at surprising intersections in the days ahead," as if prescribing a kind of prescience to the poem that we meaningfully engage with. The chance play that forms our mental and imaginative destiny!

I write as far away from myself as possible.
-Andre du Bouchet (trans. Auster)

Book Launch

I will be giving a reading at Newtonville Books on Dec. 2 With Mark Conway & Jason Stumpf. Come on down.

Reveilles in the blogosphere

Salt has posted a clip of me reading in promotion of the book as part of the blogs launching the Crashaw and Scott Award books.

Reveilles can be purchased here.