HOTEL LAUTREAMONT | read 2021-02

Poems collected in "HL" are absurdist, dream-infused. Most are inscrutable: I wonder why the title. I pick up no particular theme or even tone, and primarily read to appreciate specific phrases or images, and the wordplay. There are many puns, though not the variety which prompt laughter, rather bemusement or a question as to why it was used. (And curious if they made the copyediting slower, with readers mistakenly thinking any were errors. I wonder, too, if Ashbery would find that amusing.)

Part of my attraction for Ashbery's verse (despite not achieving a strong sense of understanding it) is the many points of intersection in interests: film (Guy Maddine, specifically); the sense that literature was missing the potential of collage (a la WSB); his efforts in producing stageplays alongside Edward Gorey. (Cover design for the 1992 Knopf edition of Lautreamont was a piece by Joseph Cornell.) Strong pointers suggesting that if we both value those things, I should pay attention to other things he's interested in, even if not immediately apparent why.

Reading the verse collected here + random selections from "Uncollected Poems" (such as "Hoboken") + chronology, I found the LOA description quite apt to my experience: colloquial yet dream-like and specific, not easy to grasp yet scans easily.

Ashbery’s poetry challenges its readers to discard all presumptions about the aims, themes, and stylistic scaffolding of verse in favor of a literature that reflects upon the limits of language and the volatility of consciousness. - Poetry Foundation biographical blurb, and I saw that in what I read.

to read:
FLOW CHART
AND THE STARS WERE SHINING
CAN YOU HEAR, BIRD
WAKEFULNESS
GIRLS ON THE RUN
YOUR NAME HERE
UNCOLLECTED POEMS ( )