John Ashbery can title a poem like no man's business. I thought I would list a few of my favorites, in no particular order:
When I Saw the Invidious Flare
Novelty Love Trot
Flow Chart
Girls on the Run
As One Put Drunk into the Packet Boat
The One thing That Can Save America
Finnish Rhapsody
Unreleased Movie
Letters I Did or Did Not Get
And Some Were Playing Cards, and Some were Playing Dice
But What is the Reader to Make of This?
Around the Rough and Rugged Rocks the Ragged Rascal Rudely Ran
Purists Will Object
37 Haiku
Proust's Questionarie
Whatever it is, Wherever You Are
Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape
The Variorum Edition
Theme Park Days
View of Delft
As Umbrellas Follow Rain
Oh Evenings
Get me Rewrite
Redeemed Area
They Don't Just Go Away, Either
Amnesia Goes to the Ball
Poem on Several Occasions
Your Name Here
I have read Ashbery mostly in translation and the titles often loose more but I always liked the titles in Shadow Train(in swedish skuggtåg by the way) simple as they often are.
ReplyDeleteAshbery also often use titles well
playing them against the poems(or with).
Of the titles you mention I like And Some Were Playing Cards, and Some were Playing Dice the best. Girls on the run is also nice.
Ashbery in translation. What a hard poet to translate, I would imagine.
ReplyDeleteyeah, I've been dissapointed with Ashbery as of late. His last two books didn't do that much for me.
ReplyDeleteBut I LOVE his earlier stuff.
Your Name Here is a fun book of poems. I also like Hotel Lautreamont. And of course, Self-Portait in a Convex Mirror.
ReplyDelete"Around the Rough and Rugged Rocks the Ragged Rascal Rudely" I've been looking for this, is it a poem or book? and if it's a poem where can i find it i've searched the web for it.....
ReplyDeleteMichael Job -- it is in Ashbery's 1984 book A Wave.
ReplyDelete