Oh, finally.

Bobby has made Mailer’s tag his own, but this is an adver­tise­ment fa mice elf agin. I’ll be read­ing my poems at Myopic Books this Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 20,  at 7 pm. Details here. Daniel Borzutzky is also read­ing, so please stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.

How awe­some is it that Sawyer was blast­ing “Search & Destroy” last night.

[This is the final install­ment of Anthony Madrid's note­book on John Ashbery's Plani­sphere, prompted by my writ­ing about same for the London Review of Books. I saw Madrid read at Myopic Books in Chicago last night. He should not be allowed in public with­out a han­dler.—mr]

ONGO­ING PLANI­SPHERE NOTE­BOOK

Anthony Madrid

5.

TWO BITS:

(a)

Pol. What is the matter my Lord.

Ham. Betweene who.

Pol. I meane the matter you reade my Lord.

Ham. Slaun­ders sir; for the sater­i­call rogue sayes here, that old men haue gray beards, that their faces are wrinck­led, their eyes purg­ing thick Amber, & plumtree gum, & that they haue a plen­ti­full lacke of wit, together with most weake hams, all which sir though I most pow­er­fully and potentlie belieue, yet I hold it not hon­esty to haue it thus set downe, for your selfe sir shall growe old as I am: if like a Crab you could goe backward.

(b)

mrs teas­dale: I’ve spon­sored your appoint­ment because I feel you are the most able states­man in all Freedonia.

fire­fly: Well, that covers a lot of ground. Say, you cover a lot of ground your­self. You’d better beat it. I hear they’re gonna tear you down and put up an office build­ing where you’re stand­ing. You can leave in a taxi. If you can’t leave in a taxi you can leave in a huff. If that’s too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff. You know you haven’t stopped talk­ing since I came here? You must have been vac­ci­nated with a phono­graph needle.

+++

These are sam­ples of bewil­der­ing non­sense. Which is not to say there isn’t any sense there. In fact, it’s almost all sense. It’s just strange.

What exactly would have to be left out from those bits to make ’em into Ash­bery poems? And what would need to be added? I feel like if I could put my finger on that, I’d really have some­thing.

ONGOING PLANI­SPHERE NOTE­BOOK
Anthony Madrid

4. Some Common Objec­tions to Ashbery—Answered

OBJEC­TIONS

(a) Doesn’t all this alle­gory and code on the sub­ject of poetry-​writing itself get a bit weari­some after a while? I mean, it’s not like he’s saying any­thing bold. And it’s every other poem.

(b) The per­sona of this book—gentle, quirky, finicky, lik­able, 100% harm­less in every way—don’t you ever get sick of the coy­ness of all that, the self-​satisfaction?

(c) Aren’t sev­enty or eighty per­cent of these dic­tion odd­i­ties just a bunch of honors dorm humor?

[p. 129] A stupor like sheep’s nos­trils
chases the ground. Day arrives with a thwack
and is left to sit all day.

[p. 134] I’ll have a mus­tard coke.