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¿Oyes, pájaro?
"¿Oyes, pájaro?" es la decimoséptima colección de poemas que publica John Ashbery. Concebido como un alfabeto de la A a la Y, los poemas surgen como una multiplicidad de voces, imágenes y tonos que confluyen en un único universo: el de la palabra.
- GenresPoetry20th Century
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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69 people want to read
About the author
John Ashbery
290 books479 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 - 6 of 6 reviews
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February 23, 2020Ashbery is my favorite-est poet-est. I'm attaching a poem from this collection here. I think captures everything that the man is capable of.
My Philosophy of Life
Just when I thought there wasn't room enough
for another thought in my head, I had this great idea—
call it a philosophy of life, if you will. Briefly,
it involved living the way philosophers live,
according to a set of principles. OK, but which ones?
That was the hardest part, I admit, but I had a
kind of dark foreknowledge of what it would be like.
Everything, from eating watermelon or going to the bathroom
or just standing on a subway platform, lost in thought
for a few minutes, or worrying about rain forests,
would be affected, or more precisely, inflected
by my new attitude. I wouldn't be preachy,
or worry about children and old people, except
in the general way prescribed by our clockwork universe.
Instead I'd sort of let things be what they are
while injecting them with the serum of the new moral climate
I thought I'd stumbled into, as a stranger
accidentally presses against a panel and a bookcase slides back,
revealing a winding staircase with greenish light
somewhere down below, and he automatically steps inside
and the bookcase slides shut, as is customary on such occasions.
At once a fragrance overwhelms him—not saffron, not lavender,
but something in between. He thinks of cushions, like the one
his uncle's Boston bull terrier used to lie on watching him
quizzically, pointed ear-tips folded over. And then the great rush
is on. Not a single idea emerges from it. It's enough
to disgust you with thought. But then you remember something
William James
wrote in some book of his you never read—it was fine, it had the
fineness,
the powder of life dusted over it, by chance, of course, yet
still looking
for evidence of fingerprints. Someone had handled it
even before he formulated it, though the thought was his and
his alone.
It's fine, in summer, to visit the seashore.
There are lots of little trips to be made.
A grove of fledgling aspens welcomes the traveler. Nearby
are the public toilets where weary pilgrims have carved
their names and addresses, and perhaps messages as well,
messages to the world, as they sat
and thought about what they'd do after using the toilet
and washing their hands at the sink, prior to stepping out
into the open again. Had they been coaxed in by principles,
and were their words philosophy, of however crude a sort?
I confess I can move no farther along this train of thought—
something's blocking it. Something I'm
not big enough to see over. Or maybe I'm frankly scared.
What was the matter with how I acted before?
But maybe I can come up with a compromise—I'll let
things be what they are, sort of. In the autumn I'll put up jellies
and preserves, against the winter cold and futility,
and that will be a human thing, and intelligent as well.
I won't be embarrassed by my friends' dumb remarks,
or even my own, though admittedly that's the hardest part,
as when you are in a crowded theater and something you say
riles the spectator in front of you, who doesn't even like the idea
of two people near him talking together. Well he's
got to be flushed out so the hunters can have a crack at him—
this thing works both ways, you know. You can't always
be worrying about others and keeping track of yourself
at the same time. That would be abusive, and about as much fun
as attending the wedding of two people you don't know.
Still, there's a lot of fun to be had in the gaps between ideas.
That's what they're made for! Now I want you to go out there
and enjoy yourself, and yes, enjoy your philosophy of life, too.
They don't come along every day. Look out! There's a big one...
My Philosophy of Life
Just when I thought there wasn't room enough
for another thought in my head, I had this great idea—
call it a philosophy of life, if you will. Briefly,
it involved living the way philosophers live,
according to a set of principles. OK, but which ones?
That was the hardest part, I admit, but I had a
kind of dark foreknowledge of what it would be like.
Everything, from eating watermelon or going to the bathroom
or just standing on a subway platform, lost in thought
for a few minutes, or worrying about rain forests,
would be affected, or more precisely, inflected
by my new attitude. I wouldn't be preachy,
or worry about children and old people, except
in the general way prescribed by our clockwork universe.
Instead I'd sort of let things be what they are
while injecting them with the serum of the new moral climate
I thought I'd stumbled into, as a stranger
accidentally presses against a panel and a bookcase slides back,
revealing a winding staircase with greenish light
somewhere down below, and he automatically steps inside
and the bookcase slides shut, as is customary on such occasions.
At once a fragrance overwhelms him—not saffron, not lavender,
but something in between. He thinks of cushions, like the one
his uncle's Boston bull terrier used to lie on watching him
quizzically, pointed ear-tips folded over. And then the great rush
is on. Not a single idea emerges from it. It's enough
to disgust you with thought. But then you remember something
William James
wrote in some book of his you never read—it was fine, it had the
fineness,
the powder of life dusted over it, by chance, of course, yet
still looking
for evidence of fingerprints. Someone had handled it
even before he formulated it, though the thought was his and
his alone.
It's fine, in summer, to visit the seashore.
There are lots of little trips to be made.
A grove of fledgling aspens welcomes the traveler. Nearby
are the public toilets where weary pilgrims have carved
their names and addresses, and perhaps messages as well,
messages to the world, as they sat
and thought about what they'd do after using the toilet
and washing their hands at the sink, prior to stepping out
into the open again. Had they been coaxed in by principles,
and were their words philosophy, of however crude a sort?
I confess I can move no farther along this train of thought—
something's blocking it. Something I'm
not big enough to see over. Or maybe I'm frankly scared.
What was the matter with how I acted before?
But maybe I can come up with a compromise—I'll let
things be what they are, sort of. In the autumn I'll put up jellies
and preserves, against the winter cold and futility,
and that will be a human thing, and intelligent as well.
I won't be embarrassed by my friends' dumb remarks,
or even my own, though admittedly that's the hardest part,
as when you are in a crowded theater and something you say
riles the spectator in front of you, who doesn't even like the idea
of two people near him talking together. Well he's
got to be flushed out so the hunters can have a crack at him—
this thing works both ways, you know. You can't always
be worrying about others and keeping track of yourself
at the same time. That would be abusive, and about as much fun
as attending the wedding of two people you don't know.
Still, there's a lot of fun to be had in the gaps between ideas.
That's what they're made for! Now I want you to go out there
and enjoy yourself, and yes, enjoy your philosophy of life, too.
They don't come along every day. Look out! There's a big one...
September 7, 2007
The newly minted poet laureate of MTV-U isn't for everybody. If you're a big fan of straightforward rhyming couplets, Ashbery's dense poetry, influenced by dadaists such as Tristan Tsara and described in an NYT review as "mapping the unconscious," will be a source of endless frustration. Admittedly, even as a fan, I have to fight the compulsion to toss the book out of the nearest window or into the nearest fireplace. But if you are patient enough, Ashbery's loping, disjointed phraseology can--and will--get to you. Just try to rid yourself of the feeling that you're not "getting the joke," and the difficult reading will eventually yield considerable pleasure.
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August 5, 2023this was an interesting and weird read for me! kinda stupid to say, but i've read a few back to back intention collections, where the poems build on each other or were arranged/built to imteract; every one of the poems in this collection over several years super stands on its own.
but i don't just mean that, there is something stunningly microcosmic-feeling about each one i think; part of it is the technique of starting "in situ"; ashbery does like hard-opening w dialogue coming outta nowhere, or maybe just has a very conversational tone like you've just zoned back into a larger conversation. i think the effect is that you're already In the poem from the second it starts
these poems are about extremely cool and masterful leaps in association. i definitely didn't a great job reading them; in that i feel in an ideal world i'd just read one a week, and really mull it over. they are built in a way that really encourages you to make associations, literary ones and cultural ones, and refute and reject and pick through your own first impressions. i think surrealist poetry is really hard, and definitely some of these didn't land for me personally because i am lazy; if the circle of meaning is too open i think they come off like randomness or are just discouraging, but these poems were very excellently crafted to compel as i said a re-read, an urge to "get it". not to say they are deconstructable in a high school lit class sense; that's the other cool thing about it; some of it seems to just be "vibe curation" aspect where he just knows exactly what to say to evoke a sense of uneasiness? or maybe light-of-heart-ness that feels suspicious
i was struck over and over by how "brave" these poems felt; in terms of how he boldly "changes the subject" without worrying about if the semantic meaning of the poem will flow without him hand-holding the reader through the shift? and it works! they still feel cohesive. i guess because he's good at the leaps. that's just skill for you i suppose
i'm definitely compelled enough to read another collection, but i do need a break from how dizzyingly "meaningless" these poems are back to back to back; i couldn't tell you a single thing about any individual one. anyway i guess he's one of the greatest poets of all time for a reason or whatever
but i don't just mean that, there is something stunningly microcosmic-feeling about each one i think; part of it is the technique of starting "in situ"; ashbery does like hard-opening w dialogue coming outta nowhere, or maybe just has a very conversational tone like you've just zoned back into a larger conversation. i think the effect is that you're already In the poem from the second it starts
these poems are about extremely cool and masterful leaps in association. i definitely didn't a great job reading them; in that i feel in an ideal world i'd just read one a week, and really mull it over. they are built in a way that really encourages you to make associations, literary ones and cultural ones, and refute and reject and pick through your own first impressions. i think surrealist poetry is really hard, and definitely some of these didn't land for me personally because i am lazy; if the circle of meaning is too open i think they come off like randomness or are just discouraging, but these poems were very excellently crafted to compel as i said a re-read, an urge to "get it". not to say they are deconstructable in a high school lit class sense; that's the other cool thing about it; some of it seems to just be "vibe curation" aspect where he just knows exactly what to say to evoke a sense of uneasiness? or maybe light-of-heart-ness that feels suspicious
i was struck over and over by how "brave" these poems felt; in terms of how he boldly "changes the subject" without worrying about if the semantic meaning of the poem will flow without him hand-holding the reader through the shift? and it works! they still feel cohesive. i guess because he's good at the leaps. that's just skill for you i suppose
i'm definitely compelled enough to read another collection, but i do need a break from how dizzyingly "meaningless" these poems are back to back to back; i couldn't tell you a single thing about any individual one. anyway i guess he's one of the greatest poets of all time for a reason or whatever
January 7, 2025
A great book of poetry
April 21, 2008
It's like an anxiety kaleidescope, really. Where past and present and future keep switching places, and Ashbery pivots his image so that it seems to be speaking to one perspective, then through this strange non sequitur/narrative force that he has it takes on a whole new life. I LOVE IT!
May 5, 2007
A few dog-eared pages, but I wasn't generally blown away.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews