Commotion of the Birds

John Ashbery

• Verlag: Ecco
• Jahr: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780062565174
• Thema: Littérature
• Thema: Poésie américaine

A crackling, moving new collection from one of America's greatest living poets.

In over twenty-six original books, the poems of John Ashbery have long served as signposts guiding us through the delights, woes, hypocrisies, and uncertainties of living in the modern world. With language harvested from everyday speech, fragments of pop culture, objects and figures borrowed from art and literature, his work makes light out of darkness, playing with tone and style to show how even the seemingly frivolous stuff of existence can be employed to express the deepest levels of feeling.

Commotion of the Birds showcases once again Ashbery's mastery of a staggering range of voices and his singular lyric agility: wry, frank, contemplative, resigned, bemused, and ecstatic. The poet in this new collection is at once removed from and immersed in the terrain of his examination. Disarmingly conversational, he invites the reader to join him in looking out onto the future with humor, curiosity, and insight. The lines of these poems achieve a low-humming, thrilling point of vibration, a jostling of feathers before flight.

CONTENTS

1. COVER
2. TITLE PAGE
3. DEDICATION
4. PUBLISHER’S NOTE
6. COMMOTION OF THE BIRDS
7. PRAYER NOT TO TOUCH
8. FEATURETTE
9. TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE
10. THE UNDERLING
11. WHO WILL DO THE KISSING?
12. RAINBOW LAUNDRY
13. LATE-ISH
14. THE HAPPY QUESTIONER
15. A FUNNY DREAM
16. THE OLD SOFA
17. THE NATIONAL DEBT
18. THE ANXIOUS MUSIC
19. AS SOMEONE WHO LIKES TRAVEL
20. DANGEROUS ASYLUM
21. BELEAGUERED
22. BUT NOBODY SAYS SO
23. FOOD EPISODE
24. HILLBILLY AIRS AND DANCES
25. A SEPARATE INCIDENT
26. TEXT TREK
27. UNDERSTANDABLY
28. DIE MEISTERSINGER
29. STRANGERS MAY KISS
30. WHATEVER THE OLD MAN DOES IS ALWAYS RIGHT
31. THIS ONCE
32. WRITTEN WITH A BALLPOINT
33. CARTOON MUSIC
34. DEPRAVED INDIFFERENCE
35. ELECTOR
36. KIND PERMISSION
37. MEAN PARTICLES
38. DESERT MOMENTS
39. A DISSERVICE
40. THE PRESIDENT’S TOENAIL
41. DOROTHY VERNON OF HADDON HALL
42. LAND MASS
43. T...