Reading John Ashbery from _As We Know_

"Litany"

Part I [17:38]

Part II [1:02:20]

Part III [16:16]

read by James Sanders and JLo

As We Know
John Ashbery
Penguin Classics, 1979
118 pages

We recorded this live on one day but paused after each section. Part II is a bit of a physical endurance test and I know my (James) eyes started to blur a bit towards the end, not helped by the fact that the lines in the two sections are not quite level. C'mon Penguin.

Ann Lauterbach has a pretty great essay about her encounter with "Litany" and her performances of it with Ashbery. She notes how it is another example of Ashbery's teaching "how to listen for the multiplicity, the plurality, of experience." Certainly, "Litany" has been an influence on the Atlanta Poets Group's investigation into the composition and performance of polyphonic poetry. In particular, "Litany" is a good example of the exploration of issues of inter- and independence of voices/parts: here one can't help but form relationships across the columns (hearing echoes), and yet one feels a certain coolness between the two, a separateness, voices together without dialogue (almost like small children who rather than play "with" each other instead play "near" each other). A good contrast to, say, Steve Benson's "Back," a recording of which will be coming soon. . .

reading John Ashbery from _THREE POEMS_

Ashbery by Bill Hayward

"THE RECITAL" [24:11]

read by JLo

Three Poems

John Ashbery

Ecco Press, 1989

118 pages

Not bad for a sight reading, huh? I had to cut in and fix four fuckups, but at this length, that's not too bad. There are surely places where, more practiced, I'd have carried the semantic push forward more effectively than I have here. Still, I enjoyed the twisty thread of thinking (logopoeia?) emerging and dodging away from the unspooling drive of my reading.

There is more to be thought about the sense of a push or drive in the text (and distinct from what a reading or performance might or might not aspire toward) and this more requires a way of thinking beyond Pound's tripartite model in such a way to figure both the incessant, machinic, automaton-like nature of the signifying chain's push toward one sham closure after another as well as the variables of capture, which is to say investment, of enjoyment - the kind that penetrates, that makes these words feel… as well as the logos, phanos, melos (perhaps as informed by, but not equivalent to Lacan's Symbolic Imaginary Real?)

Many cite The Tennis Court Oath as their favorite Ashbery or most the epochal, inimitable, etc. It's a cool book certainly, but I really like THREE POEMS lot. I chose "THE RECITAL" because of the length advantage for the reader compared to the other options, but it's still a pretty amazing piece in its own right - perhaps more immediately interpretable should anyone be so inclined. 

reading John Ashbery from _Houseboat Days_

He wasn't this old in 1977.

"Street Musicians" [1:35]

&

"Crazy Weather" [1:05]

read by JLo

Houseboat Days

John Ashbery

Penguin Books, 1977

88 pages