Unfortunate News, Everyone.
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.”
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.