Parallel Movement of the Hands: Five Unfinished Longer Works

by John Ashbery, Ben Lerner (Foreword)

A stunning collection of work from beloved poet John Ashbery, his first posthumous book  Renowned for his inventive mind, ambitious play with language, and dexterity with a wide range of tones and styles, John Ashbery has been a major artistic figure in the cultural life of our time. Parallel Movement of the Hands  gathers unpublished, book-length projects and long poems written between 1993 and 2007, along with one (as yet) undated work, to showcase Ashbery’s diverse and multifaceted artistic obsessions and sources, from children’s literature, cliffhanger cinema reels, silent films, and classical music variations by Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny to the history of early photography. Ashbery even provides a fresh and humorous take on a well-worn parable from the Gospel of Matthew. These works demonstrate that while producing and publishing the shorter, discrete poems often associated with his late career, Ashbery continued to practice the long-form, project-based writing that has long been an important element of his oeuvre. Edited and introduced by Ashbery’s former assistant poet Emily Skillings and including a preface by acclaimed poet and novelist Ben Lerner, this compelling and varied collection offers new insights into the process and creative interests of a poet whose work continues to influence generations of artists and poets with its signature intertextuality, openness, and simultaneity. A landmark publication of never-before-seen works, this book will enlighten scholars as well as new readers of one of America’s most prominent and celebrated poets.

Genres: Poetry

320 pages, Hardcover

First published June 29, 2021

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

[Richard Magahiz · Rating 4 out of 5]

All I really knew about John Ashbery's reputation was that of being a relatively "difficult" read, not as transparent as some of the other poets of his generation. I think I have read a few of his shorter works and didn't have a good sense of what I was going to find in this, the first collection of his unpublished writings which were unfinished at the time of his death.

Ashbery found inspiration for these poems in many places - Tom Swift and Hardy Boys novels, adventure movies, piano etudes by Carl Czerny, movie fan books, alongside the writing of other poets and writers. There are five long works here "The History of Photography," "The Art of Finger Dexterity," "Sacred and Profane Dances," "21 Variations on My Room," and "The Kane Richmond Project" have lines of verse and prose poetry sections assembled from these sources collage-style, then reworked over years at the level of individual words and lines in a way that I recognize myself as experimenting with, though on a vastly more daring, more intense level than I have imagined. He is not afraid of fragmenting his sentences with all these different sources seemingly incongruously, content to throw around vast shifts in tone. Concerns of rhythm, rhyme, meter, voice, and diction can be subordinated, requiring the reader to work out what other organizing principles might still remain to hang onto. I could see little bits of interesting word combinations, but was usually unable to figure out whether there was a correct emotional response to the work I was supposed to have. When I read Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus a few months ago I had a different experience, because there the emotional effect was almost always clear even when I found the words confusing. Maybe some of this happened because of the unfinished nature of the poetry, but I suspect that if these had been finished and published at some point, we would have a similar reaction to them too, because that was just the way he conceived of things. The introduction and the end notes (which comprise well over half the book's pages) are invaluable to reassure one that it wasn't simply a matter of having missed something that makes these works hard to read, but instead something intrinsic to the way they were composed.

All in all, I wouldn't say that this is a collection that everyone interested in poetry ought to love. I think when it comes to how much a reader would get out of it, it would make a big difference how much patience and indulgence they bring to the effort. I have been wanting to read Ashbery's collection "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" for a while now and I think this made me more willing to take the plunge.

I received this book in the form of an Advance Reader's Copy through Netgalley so that I could post a review of my impressions.

[Nicholas Galinaitis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am biased becauae LOVE ASHBERY and I really wish they recorded more of his books - loved this on audible. Much discussed in intro is the issue of unfinished work, and how Ashbery one time forgot the last page of a poem and said, well, its fine. You got the experience. Thats how his poems are meant, you can stop and start anywhere. They represent the river of thought, life, experience. Not for everyone, but there is something about his work that makes him special. That being said I liked the later poems in this book. Will have to reread to get another experience, since rereading gives you something new everytime.

[Andy Oram · Rating 3 out of 5]

For this poet, perhaps more than any other, seeing unfinished works can be intriguing as well as pleasurable. Ashbery has never made sense, only made verses. (Actually, parts of the long poem "The Kane Richmond Project" consist of narratives you can follow; I think Ashbery was relaxing when he wrote those.) These late works are thus fine examples of his oeuvre.

In contradiction to his verses, "You bungle candor in issuing / an edition with notes— / what manner can they confine, what new subjects elide..." his assistant Emily Skillings has added meticulous glosses describing her word choices and some of the artistic references in the poems.

[Belle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ashbery is notoriously difficult to read. I struggled through this but am looking forward to reading more of his works.

[michal k-c · Rating 4 out of 5]

love watching Ashbery play the minor scales at rapid speeds. pretty unfair to lesser poets, calling these unfinished works

[A L]

More great late John A., similar to his other books from the 90s and 00s, and with 80 pages of endnotes.

[Alex]

I got a lot out of “The History of Photography,” especially with reading Sontag on photography right after. I need to read Benjamin on photography now.