I’m at a loss, so I’m just going to lay it on you. Evidently, according to a report from William Keckler,  John Ashbery died on July 21 of  ’63. After this point, a carny was hired to give readings and a computer was programed to produce poems:

“They were all authored by a computer. 

That’s right. 

And not even a supercomputer.

They tried a supercomputer in the nineties, but it got bored writing the poems and commited suicide. 

That was the first recorded instance of machine suicide. But it’s still classified information.

No, it’s NOT a supercomputer that wrote Rivers and Mountains and Flow Chart (wink wink, nudge nudge…get it??) or Hotel Lautreamontor…well the list goes on like Banquo’s line, doesn’t it? 

It’s this really clunky thing with vaccum tubes and little dice with letters on them and sometimes it starts smoking and the administrators have to turn it off for a few hours to let it cool down.”

–From joebrainardspyjamas.blogspot.com

I could use one of those computers. Also: a carny. 

Than again, it is quite possible that I am unjustifiably entertained. This occurs on a terrifyingly frequent basis as my sense of humor is unfortunate. Still, while I take the above post as good fun, Ashbery’s poetry does, evidently, evoke some volatile reactions.

On Daniel E. Pritchard’s blog, a frenzy of commenters are attempting to hash out Ashbery’s aesthetic, namely whether or not, as Daniel claims, “[h]is is a poetry of ‘just words’, strung together, evocative at times but intentionally un-meaningful.” Even if this the case, some might see it as harmless. Daniel feels there is a real danger in this way of writing: 

“Words actually are the end of the experience, words that purposefully lack their referential meaning, that undermine by extension the idea of all possible meanings. [...] He may not intentionally be pursuing the deterioration of meaning, intellect, and humanism, but his work demands just that by denying so much of it. It is destruction without replacement – it is a gag without any substance, all laughing at the funny sound of names.”

Needless to say, some staunch Ashbery supporters were in the crowd. It began, and got a little dirty at times despite the mod’s best efforts. One commenter wrote: 

“Likening Ashbery to “language poetry” is madness. No, I take that back–it’s “cute.” Someone trying use them big poetry expressions and all. To reduce Ashbery to a collage poet (whether the poet used this term or not) based on a few recent poems (he’s been around a while and written a lot, if you didn’t know that) is equally cute.”

For the most part, though, the defense of Ashbery is very thoughtful and clear. It’s worth cruising through the post and the comments. Also, as always, it’s nice to see people who are so passionate about poems.

“Gangel: You mentioned before you get inspiration from conversations overheard in the streets. Where else?

Ashbery: I’m very much of a magpie as far as reading goes. I read anything which comes to my hand. National Enquirer, Dear Abby, a magazine at the dentist, a Victorian novel. I don’t have a program in anything, as a matter of fact.

Someone remarked about an obscene passage in a poem. I replied that this shocked him not because it was there, but because there were not more of them.

There is an American feeling that if you do one thing, you’ve got to do that and nothing else. It goes against my grain.

Poetry includes anything and everything.

Gangel: Do you find it easy to relate to people?

Ashbery: Yes I do. I am a very gregarious person. This often surprises people, because my poetry does have a reputation for being aloof and antihuman. But I’m quite the reverse. I enjoy talking with just about anybody. My students, for instance. We get along very well socially. I don’t believe in closing myself off from anybody or anything.

My best writing gets done when I’m being distracted by people who are calling me or errands that I have to do. Those things seem to help the creative process, in my case.”

–From Sue Gangel, “An Interview with John Ashbery” (originally printed in the San Francisco Review of Books [November 1977], rep. in Joe David Bellamy, Ed. American Poetry Observed: Poets On Their Work (Urbana: U Illinois P, 1984), 14.

“I am interested very much in debased and demotic forms of expression…. They often seem so much more moving than something that is beautifully phrased and composed. The crudeness of a Hollywood sound adventure picture on the one hand and a sort of high-flown translation from the Greek on the other were both elements that attracted me and not entirely just to make fun of them either, but to sort of purify the language of the tribe.”

–John Ashbery, on the film Where the North Begins, and its influence on his plays The Philosopher and The Compromise. (American Poetry Review, May-June 1984) courtesy of the Ashbery Resource Center.