Oh, finally.

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.

The pre­dictably yawn-​inducing results (by which I mean I pre­dicted the top six in my sleep—check my dream jour­nal if you don’t believe me—& the reason I was asleep is that I had been lis­ten­ing to the top six) are in for the 37th (or, I insist, 38th) Vil­lage Voice Pazz & Jop music poll. Here’s my ballot:

And some of my com­ments here (note that I pro­vide the tag line). As usual, this list doesn’t reflect my cur­rent think­ing about