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To the City
Poetry. An Englishman who has lived in both New York and Istanbul, John Ash is one of the great masters of poetic clarity. His books on the Byzantine world and ancient Anatolia are widely admired for their elegance and candor.
"These poems believe intensely in the world they bear witness to.so vividly do they believe in the happenstance they behold that at times they go for quiet, unemphatic ways of talking, perfectly registered."— Rain Taxi
"These poems believe intensely in the world they bear witness to.so vividly do they believe in the happenstance they behold that at times they go for quiet, unemphatic ways of talking, perfectly registered."— Rain Taxi
- GenresPoetry
77 pages, Paperback
First published September 30, 2004
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November 8, 2014
"...Desire /is a much more difficult concept than sex/ and more expansive like a fertile steppe, and yet..." "Sema" John Ash
Desire is an operative word here. After stumbling on Ash's miraculous Byzantine Journey a few weeks ago, and devouring it in a day, I had to track down more of his writing. This is the first of his other books to wing their way to me through the mail. Naturally, I sat down and tore through this one, although I've kept it by my arm chair for re-savoring in the past few days, to let my first impressions mellow a bit, and come to a more reasoned assessment. Ash is one of the few contemporary authors who have caused me to desire to know his entire oevre--a major theme of which is in fact desire, yearning and their antonym: loss.
I am a traditionalist in poetic matters: I like rhyme and cadenced rhythms. This book has plenty of the latter, but virtually no nod to rhyme. OK, I can live with that...but I was nevertheless disappointed at first by the simplicity of the delivery--almost prosaic tone.
That said, the gist of the poetry, the flow and the content is uncannily pleasing to my tastes. Much like Byzantine Journey, Ash seems to be plumbing something in my own style and temperament that I felt was unique. It's almost as if he's been living an alternative life that I might have pursued given the right circumstances. So reading these poems sheds a strange, fresh light on my own psyche. His series of short stanzas dedicated to music, for instance, uncannily echo my love of the background music we choose for our existence:
"Sadness surrounds music/ because it is temporal./We know it will end, and we will/ be expelled from that paradise,/ and however much we repeat it,/ like water, it cannot be grasped."
The metaphor linking music and water resonates for me, like so many of Ash's tropes--even though he's dedicated a poem to the fallacy of metaphor. He recalls Cavafy in many poems (not a bad thing) including Cavafy's invert eroticism--although it seems to me that the tenor of both themes in Ash is more directly personal and less stylized than Constantine. And there is an even more plangeant nostalgia--the "Displeasure of Ruins", for instance, mourns that cultural landscapes that are removed to reveal ruins--a sort of double nostalgia. Or how the unvisited Museum of appliances in Istanbul summons somehow the unknowable Museum of Alexandria--a pleonasm of unattainable nostalgia.
The test of poetry is repetition. As I go back to every poem in this book, I find a new angle or view, and find the rhythms do catch me and the phrases stick as I thought they would. And the matter in these poems is so varied: existential series of ponderings on flooding, beds and nervousness are all fun in their way, but I find the autobiographical sketches very moving--his reminiscences of childhood forays to the Borders, and "stopped" where he puts on his dead father's heavy coat.
But it's really the Byzantine and Turkish themes where the book soars: Ash has captured the glorious gold and grime of Istanbul--a city that has haunted me as well. Vide his is brother's response to Aya Sofya "How does it stay up?" for instance, and the historical vignettes throughout..I was moved by his elegy to "The City"--an elegy every Greek (and Turk) on earth would get..
I have to admit that "Skiadon"--his confessional of how a historical obsession from youth has informed his life resonated for me (I've had the same chip on my shoulder dating from about the same period in my life not just about Byzantium, but the plant kingdom).
Final analysis: I suspect for most people this book would be quizzical, odd. But for me, it is as though I have found a long lost Mancunian brother from the same Byzantine mother. And Turkish father.
Desire is an operative word here. After stumbling on Ash's miraculous Byzantine Journey a few weeks ago, and devouring it in a day, I had to track down more of his writing. This is the first of his other books to wing their way to me through the mail. Naturally, I sat down and tore through this one, although I've kept it by my arm chair for re-savoring in the past few days, to let my first impressions mellow a bit, and come to a more reasoned assessment. Ash is one of the few contemporary authors who have caused me to desire to know his entire oevre--a major theme of which is in fact desire, yearning and their antonym: loss.
I am a traditionalist in poetic matters: I like rhyme and cadenced rhythms. This book has plenty of the latter, but virtually no nod to rhyme. OK, I can live with that...but I was nevertheless disappointed at first by the simplicity of the delivery--almost prosaic tone.
That said, the gist of the poetry, the flow and the content is uncannily pleasing to my tastes. Much like Byzantine Journey, Ash seems to be plumbing something in my own style and temperament that I felt was unique. It's almost as if he's been living an alternative life that I might have pursued given the right circumstances. So reading these poems sheds a strange, fresh light on my own psyche. His series of short stanzas dedicated to music, for instance, uncannily echo my love of the background music we choose for our existence:
"Sadness surrounds music/ because it is temporal./We know it will end, and we will/ be expelled from that paradise,/ and however much we repeat it,/ like water, it cannot be grasped."
The metaphor linking music and water resonates for me, like so many of Ash's tropes--even though he's dedicated a poem to the fallacy of metaphor. He recalls Cavafy in many poems (not a bad thing) including Cavafy's invert eroticism--although it seems to me that the tenor of both themes in Ash is more directly personal and less stylized than Constantine. And there is an even more plangeant nostalgia--the "Displeasure of Ruins", for instance, mourns that cultural landscapes that are removed to reveal ruins--a sort of double nostalgia. Or how the unvisited Museum of appliances in Istanbul summons somehow the unknowable Museum of Alexandria--a pleonasm of unattainable nostalgia.
The test of poetry is repetition. As I go back to every poem in this book, I find a new angle or view, and find the rhythms do catch me and the phrases stick as I thought they would. And the matter in these poems is so varied: existential series of ponderings on flooding, beds and nervousness are all fun in their way, but I find the autobiographical sketches very moving--his reminiscences of childhood forays to the Borders, and "stopped" where he puts on his dead father's heavy coat.
But it's really the Byzantine and Turkish themes where the book soars: Ash has captured the glorious gold and grime of Istanbul--a city that has haunted me as well. Vide his is brother's response to Aya Sofya "How does it stay up?" for instance, and the historical vignettes throughout..I was moved by his elegy to "The City"--an elegy every Greek (and Turk) on earth would get..
I have to admit that "Skiadon"--his confessional of how a historical obsession from youth has informed his life resonated for me (I've had the same chip on my shoulder dating from about the same period in my life not just about Byzantium, but the plant kingdom).
Final analysis: I suspect for most people this book would be quizzical, odd. But for me, it is as though I have found a long lost Mancunian brother from the same Byzantine mother. And Turkish father.
Displaying 1 of 1 review