Notes from the Air

by Ashbery, John

• ISBN13: 9780061367182
• ISBN10: 0061367184
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

Summary

This long-awaited volume, a new selection of his later poems, spans ten major collections by one of America's most visionary and influential poets. Chosen by the author himself, the poems in Notes from the Air represent John Ashbery's best work from the past two decades, from the critically acclaimed April Galleons and Flow Chart to the 2005 National Book Award finalist Where Shall I Wander.While Ashbery has long been considered a powerful force in twentieth-century culture, Notes from the Air demonstrates clearly how important and relevant his writing continues to be, well into the twenty-first century. Many of the selections found here are regularly taught in university classrooms across the country, and critics and scholars vigorously debate his newest works as well as his classics. He has already published four major books since the turn of the new millennium, and, although 2007 marked his eightieth birthday, this legendary literary figure continues to write fresh, new, and vibrant poetry that remains as stimulating, provocative, and controversial as ever.Notes from the Air reveals, for the first time in one volume, the remarkable evolution of Ashbery's poetry from the mid-1980s into the new century, and offers an irresistible sampling of some of the finest work by a poet the New York Times has called a "national treasure."

Table of Contents

from April Galleons (1987)
Vetiver	p. 3
Riddle Me	p. 5
A Mood of Quiet Beauty	p. 7
Finnish Rhapsody	p. 8
Alone in the Lumber Business	p. 11
Vaucanson	p. 13
Someone You Have Seen Before	p. 15
Ostensibly	p. 17
Becalmed on Strange Waters	p. 19
The Big Cloud	p. 20
Some Money	p. 22
Wet Are the Boards	p. 23
Offshore Breeze	p. 25
The Ice Storm	p. 26
April Galleons	p. 30
from Flow Chart (1991)
Section V	p. 35
from Hotel Lautreamont (1992)
Light Turnouts	p. 65
Autumn Telegram	p. 66
Notes from the Air	p. 67
Still Life with Stranger	p. 69
Hotel Lautreamont	p. 70
On the Empress's Mind	p. 73
The Phantom Agents	p. 74
From Estuaries, from Casinos	p. 75
Autumn on the Thruway	p. 78
The Little Black Dress	p. 84
Avant de quitter ces lieux	p. 85
In Another Time	p. 87
Le mensonge de Nina Petrovna	p. 88
Korean Soap Opera	p. 90
A Driftwood Altar	p. 93
The Youth's Magic Horn	p. 96
Seasonal	p. 98
Kamarinskaya	p. 99
Elephant Visitors	p. 101
Retablo	p. 102
Quartet	p. 104
[untitled]	p. 107
Just Wednesday	p. 108
In My Way / On My Way	p. 110
No Good at Names	p. 113
In Vain, Therefore	p. 115
A Hole in Your Sock	p. 116
How to Continue	p. 117
from And the Stars Were Shining (1994)
Token Resistance	p. 121
The Mandrill on the Turnpike	p. 122
About to Move	p. 123
Ghost Riders of the Moon	p. 125
The Love Scenes	p. 126
Well, Yes, Actually	p. 127
Myrtle	p. 129
Mutt and Jeff	p. 130
Coventry	p. 132
And the Stars Were Shining	p. 134
from Can You Hear, Bird (1995)
A Poem of Unrest	p. 157
A Waking Dream	p. 158
At First I Thought I Wouldn't Say Anything About It	p. 159
... by an Earthquake	p. 160
By Guess and by Gosh	p. 164
Can You Hear, Bird	p. 165
Cantilever	p. 166
Chapter II, Book 35	p. 167
Dangerous Moonlight	p. 169
Debit Night	p. 171
Dull Mauve	p. 173
My Philosophy of Life	p. 174
No Longer Very Clear	p. 176
Operators Are Standing By	p. 177
Plain as Day	p. 178
Sleepers Awake	p. 180
The Faint of Heart	p. 181
The Green Mummies	p. 183
The Military Base	p. 184
The Problem of Anxiety	p. 185
Today's Academicians	p. 186
from Tuesday Evening	p. 187
Yes, Dr. Grenzmer. How May I Be of Assistance to You? What! You Say the Patient Has Escaped?	p. 195
You Would Have Thought	p. 198
from Wakefulness (1998)
Wakefulness	p. 201
Baltimore	p. 203
Cousin Sarah's Knitting	p. 204
Last Night I Dreamed I Was in Bucharest	p. 206
Added Poignancy	p. 207
Laughing Gravy	p. 209
From Such Commotion	p. 210
Alive at Every Passage	p. 212
The Burden of the Park	p. 213
Dear Sir or Madam	p. 216
Discordant Data	p. 217
Outside My Window the Japanese ...	p. 219
Probably Based on a Dream	p. 221
Proximity	p. 222
Like America	p. 223
Snow	p. 224
The Dong with the Luminous Nose	p. 226
Come On, Dear	p. 228
Homecoming	p. 230
from Girls on the Run (1999)
Sections I, II, III, VIII, IX, XXI	p. 233
from Your Name Here (2000)
This Room	p. 249
If You Said You Would Come with Me	p. 250
A Linnet	p. 251
The Bobinski Brothers	p. 252
Merrily We Live	p. 253
Caravaggio and His Followers	p. 255
Industrial Collage	p. 257
The History of My Life	p. 259
Memories of Imperialism	p. 260
Heartache	p. 262
Redeemed Area	p. 264
They Don't Just Go Away, Either	p. 266
Sonatine Melancolique	p. 268
Stanzas before Time	p. 270
A Suit	p. 271
Crossroads in the Past	p. 272
How Dangerous	p. 273
Lemurs and Pharisees	p. 274
The Underwriters	p. 276
Vendanges	p. 278
Has to Be Somewhere	p. 280
Strange Cinema	p. 282
Fade In	p. 283
Pastilles for the Voyage	p. 284
Your Name Here	p. 285
from Chinese Whispers (2002)
A Nice Presentation	p. 289
Disagreeable Glimpses	p. 290
Theme Park Days	p. 292
From the Diary of a Mole	p. 293
Mordred	p. 294
The Lightning Conductor	p. 296
I Asked Mr. Dithers Whether It Was Time Yet He Said No to Wait	p. 298
Chinese Whispers	p. 299
In the Time of Pussy Willows	p. 302
Little Sick Poem	p. 304
Local Legend	p. 305
Portrait with a Goat	p. 306
As Umbrellas Follow Rain	p. 307
Oh Evenings	p. 313
Runway	p. 314
Her Cardboard Lover	p. 315
The Haves	p. 316
Like Air, Almost	p. 319
The Blessed Way Out	p. 321
The Business of Falling Asleep (2)	p. 322
Sir Gammer Vans	p. 324
from Where Shall I Wander (2005)
Ignorance of the Law Is No Excuse	p. 329
Day's of Reckoning	p. 330
Coma Berenices	p. 332
The New Higher	p. 336
Interesting People of Newfoundland	p. 337
Retro	p. 339
Annuals and Perennials	p. 341
Heavy Home	p. 342
The Template	p. 343
The Snow-Stained Petals Aren't Pretty Any More	p. 344
Sonnet: More of Same	p. 345
The Love Interest	p. 346
Composition	p. 347
Where Shall I Wander	p. 348
Index of Titles and First Lines	p. 353
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

Notes from the Air
Selected Later Poems

Vetiver

Ages passed slowly, like a load of hay,
As the flowers recited their lines
And pike stirred at the bottom of the pond.
The pen was cool to the touch.
The staircase swept upward
Through fragmented garlands, keeping the melancholy
Already distilled in letters of the alphabet.

It would be time for winter now, its spun-sugar
Palaces and also lines of care
At the mouth, pink smudges on the forehead and cheeks,
The color once known as “ashes of roses.”
How many snakes and lizards shed their skins
For time to be passing on like this,
Sinking deeper in the sand as it wound toward
The conclusion. It had all been working so well and now,
Well, it just kind of came apart in the hand
As a change is voiced, sharp
As a fishhook in the throat, and decorative tears flowed
Past us into a basin called infinity.
[. . .]

Notes from the Air
Selected Later Poems. Copyright © by John Ashbery. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from Notes from the Air by John Ashbery
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.