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Where Shall I Wander
A masterful collection from “the grand old man of American poetry” ( New York Times ) You meant more than life to me. I lived through you not knowing, not knowing I was living. I learned that you called for me. I came to where you were living, up a stair. There was no one there. No one to appreciate me. The legality of it upset a chair. Many times to celebrate we were called together and where we had been there was nothing there, nothing that is anywhere. We passed obliquely, leaving no stare. When the sun was done muttering, in an optimistic way, it was time to leave that there. --from “The New Higher”
96 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2005
15 people are currently reading
452 people want to read
About the author
John Ashbery
290 books478 followersFormal experimentation and connection to visual art of noted American poet John Ashbery of the original writers of New York School won a Pulitzer Prize for
Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror
(1975).
From Harvard and Columbia, John Ashbery earned degrees, and he traveled of James William Fulbright to France in 1955. He published more than twenty best known collections, most recently A Worldly Country (2007). Wystan Hugh Auden selected early Some Trees for the younger series of Elihu Yale, and he later obtained the major national book award and the critics circle. He served as executive editor of Art News and as the critic for magazine and Newsweek. A member of the academies of letters and sciences, he served as chancellor from 1988 to 1999. He received many awards internationally and fellowships of John Simon Guggenheim and John Donald MacArthur from 1985 to 1990. People translated his work into more than twenty languages. He lived and from 1990 served as the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. professor of languages and literature at Bard college.
From Harvard and Columbia, John Ashbery earned degrees, and he traveled of James William Fulbright to France in 1955. He published more than twenty best known collections, most recently A Worldly Country (2007). Wystan Hugh Auden selected early Some Trees for the younger series of Elihu Yale, and he later obtained the major national book award and the critics circle. He served as executive editor of Art News and as the critic for magazine and Newsweek. A member of the academies of letters and sciences, he served as chancellor from 1988 to 1999. He received many awards internationally and fellowships of John Simon Guggenheim and John Donald MacArthur from 1985 to 1990. People translated his work into more than twenty languages. He lived and from 1990 served as the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. professor of languages and literature at Bard college.
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
September 4, 2009
There is really not much you could say about John Ashbery except he has to be read to be believed. Where? indeed......
March 31, 2021
Telling it so simple, so far away,
as this America, home of the free,
colored ashes smeared on the base
or pedestal that flourishes ways of doubting
to be graceful, wave a slender hand . . .
We are fleet and persecuting
as hawks or crows.
We suffer for the lies we told, not wanting to
yet cupped in the wristlock of grace,
teenage Borgias or Gonzagas,
gold against gray in bands streaming,
meaning no harm, we never
meant it to, this stream that outpours now
haplessly, into the vestibule that awaits.
We have shapes but no power.
September 15, 2017
"Difficult" is a different thing from "incomprehensible, I know that, and Ashbery has a reputation that makes me reluctant to say bad things about this collection, but... I don't get it. Seems like word-salad, some nice effects, some pleasing music, but really, really inconsequential. My first Ashbery collection, I've read isolated poems in anthologies previously, and so many people say he's wonderful and important that I won't judge him on one book, but I'm not enthused. And I really like Geoffrey Hill, so I'm not easily daunted. I need guidance.
January 17, 2009
Asbery is an American treasure that will stand as a giant in 20th and 21st century poetry
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March 2, 2023«I must get back to my elegy»
October 16, 2024
Strong prose
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May 2, 2011Ashbery’s Where Shall I Wander exhibits a contrast between poetry and prose similar to his book A Wave. The book is filled with diverse poems, both in form and in content, but the Ashbery voice is apparent in all of them. Some poems have short lines, some have long lines, some are written in prose. Some are incredibly short with one seven line stanza, and others go on for four or five pages. This diversity helps to keep the book interesting and engaging, and also shows Ashbery’s skill in driving his own voice and style into many forms of poetry and prose.
The prose in this book is unique in that it truly carries the same style as the poetry. There are more prose pieces in this book than in A Wave, but they also feel less story-like. They are often a continuation of Ashbery’s poetry, only in paragraph form and often adhering to a slightly more obvious theme for the reader to follow.
The content of Ashbery’s poetry was consistent and incredible. He kept up the fantastic imagery that riddle his other books and continued to use much anthropomorphism to give animate actions to inanimate and natural objects. He also uses the enjambment very tastefully to connect stanzas throughout his poems. The writing is riddled with references to time: to years past, to years ahead, and to seasons. For example, his first prose piece in the book, “Coma Berenices,” follows a years worth of time, from winter to winter, and focuses on different groups of people for the different times of the year. Ashbery also continues to hold on to themes, images, and words throughout a poem, bringing them back tastefully so the reader is reminded and satisfied with the image. The example in “Coma Berenices” is an anthropomorphism of snow that Ashbery uses at the beginning and end of the piece.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and I found it to be an accurate representation of Ashbery’s style and form. The content and diversity of form in the book made it an engaging and worthwhile read.
The prose in this book is unique in that it truly carries the same style as the poetry. There are more prose pieces in this book than in A Wave, but they also feel less story-like. They are often a continuation of Ashbery’s poetry, only in paragraph form and often adhering to a slightly more obvious theme for the reader to follow.
The content of Ashbery’s poetry was consistent and incredible. He kept up the fantastic imagery that riddle his other books and continued to use much anthropomorphism to give animate actions to inanimate and natural objects. He also uses the enjambment very tastefully to connect stanzas throughout his poems. The writing is riddled with references to time: to years past, to years ahead, and to seasons. For example, his first prose piece in the book, “Coma Berenices,” follows a years worth of time, from winter to winter, and focuses on different groups of people for the different times of the year. Ashbery also continues to hold on to themes, images, and words throughout a poem, bringing them back tastefully so the reader is reminded and satisfied with the image. The example in “Coma Berenices” is an anthropomorphism of snow that Ashbery uses at the beginning and end of the piece.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and I found it to be an accurate representation of Ashbery’s style and form. The content and diversity of form in the book made it an engaging and worthwhile read.
June 18, 2010
The New Higher is very dear to my heart. I would've bought this book even for just this poem alone.
Written April 12, 2008:
It is three in the afternoon. I take a photo of a window and the curtain parting the sunlight.
Written April 12, 2008:
It is three in the afternoon. I take a photo of a window and the curtain parting the sunlight.
The New Higher
John Ashbery
You meant more than life to me. I lived through
you not knowing, not knowing I was living.
I learned that you called for me. I came to where
you were living, up a stair. There was no one there.
No one to appreciate me. The legality of it
upset a chair. Many times to celebrate
we were called together and where
we had been there was nothing there,
nothing that is anywhere. We passed obliquely,
leaving no stare. When the sun was done muttering,
in an optimistic way, it was time to leave that there.
Blithely passing in and out of where, blushing shyly
at the tag on the overcoat near the window where
the outside crept away, I put aside the there and now.
Now it was time to stumble anew,
blacking out when time came in the window.
There was not much of it left.
I laughed and put my hands shyly
across your eyes. Can you see now?
Yes I can see I am only in the where
where the blossoming stream takes off, under your window.
Go presently you said. Go from my window.
I am in love with your window I cannot undermine
it, I said.
February 19, 2017
You know what, yeah. Included in the collection, "Retro" is one of my go-to contemporary poems, one discussed in Longenbach's The Art of the Line. It's in lines and prose, elliptical and fragmented. "The midnight forest drags you along, thousands of peach hectares." Also, love the title poem of this collection.
November 19, 2009
A strong Ashbery book, even if it is not among my favorites. As always, the sharp resonance that comes from crystal clear and startling imagery is on display, and his lines are a pleasure to read aloud.
June 17, 2016
2.5 stars. To be honest, nothing in this collection pulled me in. I couldn't connect with any of the poems and my star rating stems on my own unwillingness to dig deeper and spend more time with them.
January 4, 2008
This time Ashbery left me a little flat. Didn't like it as much as I did Chinese Whispers (the last of his books that I read).
January 18, 2008
Wasn't exactly what I dreamed it would be, but, you know, it's Ashbery.
July 17, 2009
i can't believe it took me this long to find him. each poem reads like a familiar preoccupation.
September 22, 2015
Ashberry is always difficult to read. I feel as though the meaning is hidden deep in the poem. As I try to understand the poem I feel as though I get lost in the text.
January 2, 2025
I am making my way through my vast library of poetry books, many bought without any knowledge of the poet or their works. In the case of John Ashbery, this will be the only book of his poetry that I read until I die.
Ashbery's been dead since 2017, and this collection was published in 2005, when he was 78 and winding up his career as a professor. He's won a Pulitzer Prize and served on several distinguished boards for poetry and literature.
This does not make his poetry palatable.
In fact, this collection is so academically written as to be dreadful. He may be considered a surrealist, but these poems feel more like random thoughts and sentences that an aging poet might jot down and call it a poem, and those around him, his peers, because of his standing in the world of poetry, ooh and aah over every poem.
There are several "poems" in this collection which are nothing more than rambling paragraphs that go on for several pages. They can't even be called "prose poems" (a form I don't particularly care for). There is nothing poetic about them, and after five or six pages of a "prose poem" it just feels like shitty prose.
I don't claim to be an expert on poetry, but I know what I like. I want clarity of lines. I want imaginative turns of phrase and not just words thrown together. I don't want poetry that uses big, obscure words that stop the reader in his tracks and force him to look something up in the hopes of discerning a deeper meaning in the line or poem, only to find he's more confused than ever.
John Ashbery will no longer haunt my poetry shelves.
Ashbery's been dead since 2017, and this collection was published in 2005, when he was 78 and winding up his career as a professor. He's won a Pulitzer Prize and served on several distinguished boards for poetry and literature.
This does not make his poetry palatable.
In fact, this collection is so academically written as to be dreadful. He may be considered a surrealist, but these poems feel more like random thoughts and sentences that an aging poet might jot down and call it a poem, and those around him, his peers, because of his standing in the world of poetry, ooh and aah over every poem.
There are several "poems" in this collection which are nothing more than rambling paragraphs that go on for several pages. They can't even be called "prose poems" (a form I don't particularly care for). There is nothing poetic about them, and after five or six pages of a "prose poem" it just feels like shitty prose.
I don't claim to be an expert on poetry, but I know what I like. I want clarity of lines. I want imaginative turns of phrase and not just words thrown together. I don't want poetry that uses big, obscure words that stop the reader in his tracks and force him to look something up in the hopes of discerning a deeper meaning in the line or poem, only to find he's more confused than ever.
John Ashbery will no longer haunt my poetry shelves.
May 11, 2022
This is another book by someone considered to have been one of the most important poets in English of recent time. It has the same features I saw in his posthumous collection Parallel Movement of the Hands: Five Unfinished Longer Works, with phrases and sentences which individually seem okay but don't make much sense when they are placed up against me another, parallel constructions that seem oddly mismatched, statements that sound very confident about themselves in the middle or the end of a poem which stick out in baffling ways. It feels lively and active to me if I can put up with the many tangents and contradictions. It can convey emotion, humor, frequently, loss and sadness too. He often refers to things which inspired the writing which the reader has no immediate access to. Somehow he makes it clear this is all intentional, not in a way that makes him superior, but as an exercise in the possibilities of language. The title is me of the most straightforward admissions - reading this is an experience of wandering. If you are willing to do this it can be a pleasure.
September 29, 2018
Poetry is a curious thing. It can be engaging, disarming, inspiring, and thought provoking. For me, the type of poetry I like is the one that takes me by surprise. That paints beautiful pictures with words and IN words; by the latter I mean that the words in sequence, look, sound, and feel beautiful.
Then there are collections that are cryptic, that beg to be read and re-read until meaning finally flourishes through. Moreover, there is poetry that almost feels as if it's designed for the reader to sound fancy when they say, "Oh, I just read Such-and-Such by So-and-So" to which someone will pucker their lips or raise their eyebrows impressed by their latest literary conquest. That's how this collection felt for me but I'm mature enough to know that different poetry connects to different people and connects differently.
That's the long-ish version of my impression of John Ashbery's "Where Shall I Wander." If you need a brief description then I shall limit myself to saying it's not my cup of tea... which is odd, because I love lots of types of teas.
Then there are collections that are cryptic, that beg to be read and re-read until meaning finally flourishes through. Moreover, there is poetry that almost feels as if it's designed for the reader to sound fancy when they say, "Oh, I just read Such-and-Such by So-and-So" to which someone will pucker their lips or raise their eyebrows impressed by their latest literary conquest. That's how this collection felt for me but I'm mature enough to know that different poetry connects to different people and connects differently.
That's the long-ish version of my impression of John Ashbery's "Where Shall I Wander." If you need a brief description then I shall limit myself to saying it's not my cup of tea... which is odd, because I love lots of types of teas.
April 11, 2023
I read poetry the way I walked through art museums before design school.
I don't have context and language to understand what I'm seeing, but that honestly doesn't bother me because it still (usually) gets a reaction. I like having this entire genre that I don't understand but still feel free to dabble in every once and a while.
[I'm only so interested anyway]
I don't have context and language to understand what I'm seeing, but that honestly doesn't bother me because it still (usually) gets a reaction. I like having this entire genre that I don't understand but still feel free to dabble in every once and a while.
[I'm only so interested anyway]
January 29, 2022
Somehow I am missing the purpose of these poems. Maybe I will try another collection found my way to his work from the landscape architect Laurie Olin’s excellent new book of essays. DM with suggestions
May 18, 2023
I read a lot of poetry, and it’s so refreshing to read a Master!
June 25, 2024
Good old John Ashbery! Inimitable, elegant, esoteric, abstract. This collection was no exception. Not my favorite but also not my least favorite—and funny! Some in here I really enjoyed.
February 2, 2018
This was a swim in muddy waters for the first 1/3, then it opened up. Some really nice ones in the back half. Yet not fully my style. Choppy in rhythm. Short on music. A bit too remote. Self-consciously intellectual and lacking in warmth. But somehow still worthwhile.
September 29, 2013
I'm not sure that I'm much of a poetry reader. Sure, I was an English major in college and, sure, I went through the regular rigamarole of basic poetry study. Heck, I even wrote a couple of poems myself in a creative writing course. But I don't think any of that helped me when trying to tackle this Ashbery collection. I should note that it didn't help to read things like: "No figure looms so large in American poetry over the past 50 years as John Ashbery." Langdom Hammer said that and I don't know who he is except that he teaches English at Yale, so I suppose he must be brilliant.
Anyways, I thought that I approached this project admirably: I read through the collection in one sitting, then went back through it and marked the poems that I wanted to reread. One week later, I went back through and read the poems I had marked, plus a bunch of others. I was somewhat surprised when, rereading those marked poems, that I couldn't recall what I had liked about them in the first place. I had the vague recollection of certain lines and phrases jumping out at me, but on review, the poems seemed oblique and confusing, sliding just past my ability at comprehension. Maybe I need to try again in a week. Maybe I need to read more poetry.
A note: I'm hedging on 3/5 stars, because I didn't like or really dislike this book. I at least liked some of it one of the times that I went through it. So 3 stars it is - perhaps a perusal in the future will change my mind?
Anyways, I thought that I approached this project admirably: I read through the collection in one sitting, then went back through it and marked the poems that I wanted to reread. One week later, I went back through and read the poems I had marked, plus a bunch of others. I was somewhat surprised when, rereading those marked poems, that I couldn't recall what I had liked about them in the first place. I had the vague recollection of certain lines and phrases jumping out at me, but on review, the poems seemed oblique and confusing, sliding just past my ability at comprehension. Maybe I need to try again in a week. Maybe I need to read more poetry.
A note: I'm hedging on 3/5 stars, because I didn't like or really dislike this book. I at least liked some of it one of the times that I went through it. So 3 stars it is - perhaps a perusal in the future will change my mind?
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October 5, 2025"There is a warning somewhere in this but i do not know if it will be transmitted."
"I am half in love with your window I cannot undermine / it, I said."
"Better the long way home, than home; better an unlit fire / than the frozen mantelpiece. Better toys than a blanket / of stars waiting for you upstairs. “Bankruptcy, ma’am: I’m / better at it than most. It definitely needs more salt."
"I try and say it too; / you are glad it's over, except for a ton of sleep / and the half dreams that people it-people you knew, / but they weren't those people, only figures on a beach."
"The right of these citizens to keep silent: / cutting up things, bringing evidence, changing everything."
"Is it raining yet? I quit."
"I am half in love with your window I cannot undermine / it, I said."
"Better the long way home, than home; better an unlit fire / than the frozen mantelpiece. Better toys than a blanket / of stars waiting for you upstairs. “Bankruptcy, ma’am: I’m / better at it than most. It definitely needs more salt."
"I try and say it too; / you are glad it's over, except for a ton of sleep / and the half dreams that people it-people you knew, / but they weren't those people, only figures on a beach."
"The right of these citizens to keep silent: / cutting up things, bringing evidence, changing everything."
"Is it raining yet? I quit."
July 13, 2010
Most poems from John trouble me so that I can't make out what they're about. Some make good sense, but those that don't I gloss over twice and read closely, then realize this one or that one wasn't meant for my understanding.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews