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READ THIS
The poet appears to be making a nostalgic return to the memories of youth and love, where even loss of
dignity is a romantic memory.
ABOUT THE POET
John Ashbery was born in Rochester, New York, in 1927. He was raised on a farm and then went to
Deerfield Academy where he began reading and writing poetry. He published a few of his poems as well
as a short story in the school newspaper.
He moved from there to Harvard University where he studied English, graduating cum laude in
1949. While there he was a member of the Harvard Advocate, the university's literary magazine.
He then went to Columbia University where he graduated with a Masters Degree in 1951.
Ashbery began work as a copywriter before a Fulbright Fellowship took him to France. There he took up
work as an editor, art critic and translator in order to earn pocket money.
Once back in the United States, he continued as an art critic for both New York and
Newsweek magazines, and was on the editorial board of ARTnews. For some years he was
also an editor at Partisan Review.
In the early 1970s, Ashbery began teaching at Brooklyn College and was elected a Fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1983. During the 1980s he became Professor of Languages and
Literature at Bard College, a position he held until his retirement in 2008.
He was the poet laureate of the State of New York from 2001 to 2003, and served for a time as a
Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. He is the author of more than twenty books of poetry and
has won nearly every major American award for poetry. He is recognized as one of the greatest 20th
century American poets.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
"It's this crazy weather we've been having;
Falling forward one minute, lying down the next
Among the loose grasses and soft, white, nameless flowers."
- What does the poet mean when he says, "Falling forward one minute, lying down the
next"? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet is remembering the time when he was young and in love and when he had no inhibitions. He
was on a very wet, muddy and slippery path in a park, wasn't he? He was slipping and falling. One time
he would slip and fall forward onto his face. Then his legs would shoot out from under him and he would
find himself lying flat on his back ("lying down"). And presumably everyone was roaring with uninhibited
laughter.
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- Is there any reason why the soft, white flowers should be nameless? (4)
[Need help?]
Of course, it's always possible that he never did know the name of the flowers, only that they were white.
On the other hand, he is describing an incident which happened when he was much younger. It is
possible that he has forgotten the name of the flowers and can only remember their colour.
Again, the poet is recalling an incident which had meaning. It was the event which was important and not
what type of flowers they were. Giving the flowers a name might detract from the tale the poet is telling.
Indeed, he does not even mention the person he was with. Her identity too was possibly unimportant.
Or is the poet keeping everything vague - just a vague remembrance which could be anything, anyplace,
with any person. It's just the inhibitions of youth that is important.
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"People have been making a garment out of it,
Stitching the white of lilacs together with lightning
At some anonymous crossroads."
- What does the poet mean when he says that "people have been making a garment out of it"? And why
were they stitching it together "with lightning"? (4)
[Need help?]
It is quite possible that the flowers were in such abundance that people were picking them and stitching
them together into what are known as "daisy chains".
And the lightning? It seems that there was lightning that day - the poet mentions it elsewhere. But he is
taking the whole circumstance - mud, lightning, flowers - and stitching it all together into a poetic garment.
They are wearing a poem.
A garment of poetry? Stitched together by threads of lightning? But notice that the flowers are white,
innocent. And the thunder and lightning are only creative but cannot harm them ("The sky calls to the deaf
earth").
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- Why the mention of "some anonymous crossroads"? (4)
[Need help?]
It would seem that the poet was in a park. These parks often had benches at the crossing of the paths
(the "crossroads") and it was here that the young people were sitting and stitching together the chains of
flowers.
But once again, it is a vague memory of an "anonymous crossroads". Everything is vague, anonymous.
Why?
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"The sky calls
To the deaf earth."
- What is happening here? And why is the earth "deaf"? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet is probably describing a flash of lightning, isn't he? And the flash was so close and loud that the
earth was deaf as a result. A TRANSFERRED EPITHET? It wasn't so much the earth that was deaf as
the people sitting there.
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"The proverbial disarray
Of morning corrects itself as you stand up."
- What is this "proverbial disarray of morning"? (4)
[Need help?]
When one gets out of bed, one's bedclothes are in total disarray, aren't they? The poet compares their
clothes here to that. They are falling all over the place. And they keep "lying down" and, when they get
up, their clothes are in total disarray as if they had been lying down in bed. But it all falls back into place
as they stand up.
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"You are wearing a text. The lines
Droop to your shoelaces and I shall never want or need
Any other literature than this poetry of mud."
- What is the "text" they are wearing? (4)
[Need help?]
Literally, they are covered in mud, with flowers and leaves stuck to them. But this is a romantic time for
the poet. He is young and out with someone he loves. It is therefore as if he is wearing a poem, and the
mud, leaves and flowers are the words of the love-poem or sonnet. Indeed, it's so memorable that he will
never again need any other literature than this "poetry of mud".
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"And ambitious reminiscences of times when it came easily
Through the then woods and ploughed fields and had
A simple unconscious dignity we can never hope to
Approximate now except in narrow ravines nobody
Will inspect where some late sample of the rare,
Uninteresting specimen might still be putting out shoots, for all we know."
- What are "reminiscences"? Why should the poet speak about them as "ambitious
reminiscences"? (4)
[Need help?]
"Reminiscences" are the memories of usually happy moments in one's life. Would "ambitious
reminiscences" be the reminiscences of the big things in one's life, of the most happy times? What do
you think?
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- How can we be certain that the poet is speaking of long past times? (4)
[Need help?]
We know this poem is a reflection of long past times because he speaks of "reminiscences" and he
mentions that "we can never hope to approximate [it] now". In other words, what happened a long time
ago can't be repeated now.
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- Why does the poet say they can "never hope to approximate now except in narrow ravines nobody will
inspect"? (4)
[Need help?]
These days they have grown older and have become more conscious of dignity. In any case, the parks
are becoming overcrowded, and there is less chance that one will have that type of unrestrained fun. Of
course, with growing crowds, the pathways are also better constructed so that people can no longer slip
around and fall in the mud - unless, of course, one goes to a park far off the beaten track and where there
are fewer people. But these will also be in ravines which are difficult to get into.
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"some late sample of the rare,
Uninteresting specimen might still be putting out shoots"
- What point is the poet making here? (4)
[Need help?]
Is the poet saying that it does still happen but it is rare and, because of the changed world, it's not as
exciting as it used to be when he was young? Youth today is an "uninteresting specimen" and young
people are not doing the exciting things the poet used to do when he was young.
Do you agree?
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