And the Stars Were Shining

by John Ashbery

John Ashbery's sixteenth collection of poems, like all the others, strikes out into new territory and engages the reader in new and unexpected ways. With the exception of the title poem, which concludes the volume - a thirteen-part poem of exceptional grace and brilliance - the fifty-eight poems in this collection are mostly short; in their relative brevity they display all the valiant wit and rich lyric intensity which readers know from Ashbery's expansive longer work. The critic Harold Bloom has observed: "And the Stars Were Shining is one of John Ashbery's strongest collections, the title poem his most beautiful long poem yet. He helps to redeem a bad time when many among us have joined in a guilty flight away from the aesthetic."

Genres: Poetry, Ebooks, 20th Century

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Formal 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.

Reviews

[cc · Rating 4 out of 5]

It
isn't possible to be young anymore.
Yet the tree treats me like a brute friend;
my own shoes have scarred the walk I've taken.
-- "Token Resistance"

I need a tragic future to invest in.
-- "Free Nail Polish"

And what
sirens sing to me now,
cover me with buttons?
-- "Till the Bus Starts"

The past was peaches then.
-- "Falls to the Floor, Comes to the Door"

The future is a ghost. The past,
it says here, is an automated manikin.
Not death, one of his plenipotentiaries.

Sea in my regards,
this life is lit
with all the sleep it can absorb.

I used to shuffle a lot. Someday
with luck, I'll make it to the newsstand
and buy some cherries, greet old friends.
-- "World's End"

Those who wish to remain naked are coaxed out of laughter
with tea and nobody's nose is to the grindstone
anymore, I bet, and you can figure out these shivering trees.
But the owner of the bookstore knew that the flea was blown out of all proportion,
with September steps to go down in passing
before the tremendous dogs are unleashed.
-- "Works on Paper I"

The bear is still around
whose hide you sold,
wondering why children fear him.
Is it too much to ask
safe conduct, yes, for him too
in the travesty of night
we all must wear
for a while?
-- "Leeward"

And time will be as precise
as a small table with a cordless phone on it, next to a television.
-- "And the Stars Were Shining (VI)"

Strange, how a few decibels can make your day.
-- "And the Stars Were Shining (IX)"

For we end
as we are forgiven, with chords the bird promised
caught in our throats, O sweetest song,
color of berries, that I lied for and extended
improbably a little distance from the given grave.
-- "And the Stars Were Shining (XI)"

Summer won't end in your lap,
nor are the stars more casual than usual.
Peace, quiet, a dictionary -- it was so important,
yet at the end nobody had any time for any of it.
It was as if all of it had never happened,
my shoelaces were untied, and -- am I forgetting anything?
-- "And the Stars Were Shining (XIII)"

[atito · Rating 5 out of 5]

last of today's harvest came to me in the cupped starlight. i have not visited ashbery since studying self-portrait all those years ago, where i had filed him away under the category of "difficult & reflexive poets," the kind that thinkers & tinkerers can make much of. i have just forgotten the how. this book contains gently & generously the movement from x to y, the movement of mind over world, and the movement of phenomena away from perception. the latter is particularly lovely as ashbery logs the sleights of hand that snatch the "lodestar" from under your nose & you feel no heavier for it. it all goes down easy & so movingly, the way life might accumulate and dissipate, as it tends to do around human shores.

"they wouldn't believe you anyway--it's just / that my mind is full of eyes, days like this."

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only one of these poems that I actually liked was the one that was just a list of titles. Otherwise, this book was utterly mystifying. Not only did it not make sense, there was no sense *to* be made. No amount of effort would be sufficient to interpret these poems. You could arbitrarily change any word or any line in any of them, and it wouldn't make any difference. Maybe that's intentional, but it seems like the opposite of how poetry is supposed to work. I honestly don't understand how anyone could enjoy reading this kind of poetry.

[taylor c milnes · Rating 2 out of 5]

maybe it was just me, but a lot of this felt like nonsense, and not the whimsical fun kind.
so many lines seems completely random and separate from the rest of the poem, like it was only added to make it feel obscure and niche. it just wasn’t for me.

it took me over a week to read this because i just couldn’t get into it

[Paul Vermeersch · Rating 5 out of 5]

A vastly underrated collection by Ashbery. This book is lovely. Like sunlight, like a warm bath, coziness. There is the sense, page after page, of a feeling of joy not only in the language, but in the things the language indicates. Free nail polish. Gummed reinforcements. Pleasure boats. Sheer loveliness. And the title long poem is a stunner.

[Poggar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title poem is shallow and deprived of imagination which is critical for a good poet. The use of words or language is reckless and without careful consideration or examination. Some lines are great but in general it’s nit so different than the tennis court oaths

[Nick Edkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

It would take a re-read to know if I missed something, but I found large sections of the language to be tortured to no stylistic or meaningful end. There were several moments where things did resolve vividly, but they came too infrequently for me.

[A L]

Lovely energy.

[Kasandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're not familiar with Ashbery's poetry, and you read a lot of poetry, you'll find his stuff very different and hopefully refreshing. It's not linear; it's narrative in a strange way, the way dreams jump around from image to image, topic to topic. It seems very stream-of-consciousness, but impersonal and therefore open to whatever interpretation you might want to bring to the table. On my first introduction to Ashbery, years ago, I hated his work because it "didn't make sense" and "didn't tell a story". I was wrong. Many of these poems can make sense and tell a story if you're willing to suspend judgment and enjoy his use of language. Now that I have more experience reading and writing poetry, I see Ashbery's work as brilliant, even though at first glance it's easy to label it nonsensical or deliberately obtuse. He's really impossible to imitate, or at least to imitate well. I know no one else who writes like this. His work isn't easy, but it has a great sense of humor and can touch deep emotion with what it triggers as you read. When the world doesn't make sense, Ashbery is a great touchstone, reminding you that not everything needs to "make sense" or be completely clear to be resonant mentally and emotionally. Well worth the work it takes to read. And if you're not "into" poetry, you may enjoy Ashbery more, simply because he takes off in such surprising and unpredictable directions. However, I'm sure there are many who read one poem, go "this is weird, I don't get it", and never dig any further. I'm glad I persisted. This is a book of poetry to go back to as inspiration for the imagination and the unconscious voice popping up out of seemingly nowhere. Ashbery makes what he does look and sound easy - but it's not.

[Roshan · Rating 4 out of 5]

At once accessible and difficult, Ashbery is an inventive and calculating poet, worthy of the praise he receives. This is the first of his books I've read--the imagery can be difficult to piece together, a search for continuity of ideas from line to line can be disorienting. But the language feels incredibly measured, precise, and stressed over, each line not one syllable short or long. The standout of the collection is the final, title poem, a long, thoughtful collection of images and ideas, with a steady wash of perplexing and beautiful imagery. A poet who asks just all the right questions in his own way.

[Chris Lilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every visit to Cape Cod, I try to read some Ashbery. Every time I am perplexed. The guy can obviously write extremely well, magnificent control, ambitious intention, huge and impressive word-hoard immaculately wielded. And still it all adds up to remarkably little. In the words of J. Ashbery, "His tangling so flummoxed him,/ all he said was "Boats along the way."
I think I need poetry to say a bit more to me than "Boats along the way." Although I quite enjoy that as a phrase to take from maritime Cape Cod. Next year, the break-through. Now back to the unopaque wordcraft of Dylan Thomas. You know where you are with Dylan Thomas.

[Thany · Rating 3 out of 5]

**read in response to the popsugar reading challenge prompt “a book with fewer than 1,000 goodreads reviews”**

[Joseph]

“We sure live in a bizarre and furious
galaxy, but now it’s up to us to make it
into an environment for maps to sidle up to,
as trustingly as leeches. Heck, put us
on the the map, while you’re at it.
That way we can smoke a cigarette, and stay and sway,
shooting the breeze with night and her swift promontories.”

[Husayn · Rating 4 out of 5]

probably 4.5, at times slightly too discursive but brillaint tone, simplicity, and playfulness

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This took me longer to finish than I expected.

[Stephen]

A book of nonsense poetry. That's not a judgment just a description.

[ocean 99 · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has some really good pieces in it, but it in no way compares to his A Wave collection.

[Luigi Sposato · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was inspired to write so much while reading this. The best kind of confusing.

[Lauren Wheeler · Rating 1 out of 5]

And I continue to miss why John Ashbery is revered as one of our greatest poets.

[Vicki · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of those kinds of poetry that I didn't fully understand.