Ashbury-Joan Shang

I felt that the manner in which Cage approached poetry writing reflects the nature of human thought processes. That is, we often experience haphazard jumps between one thought to another in a similar way that one topic unfolds into another in the poems of “The Tennis Court Oath.” Yet, at the time, employing a technique that resonates the nature of the thought process makes it very difficult to understand the poem. The following selection from the text illustrates this:  

“You are freed

            including barrels

head of the swan      forestry

the night and stars fork

That is, he said

            And rushing under the hoops of

Equations probable

            Absolute mush          the right

entity chain store     sewer opened their books

            The flood dragged you” (Ashbury, 34).

In this particular selection of text, we observe the rapid shifts between subjects such as “swan,” then jumping to “forestry,” then “Equations,“ “chain store,” and “sewer.” The way that these topics are situated within the text obscures the directionality and coherence of the poems. That is, just when we think that we have found the poem’s flow and are progressing in one direction, Asbury throws out something new that completely spins us in another direction. For example, reading this line “And rushing under the hoops of” presents the reader with an action (“rushing”) and a setting (“under the hoops of”), yet when we reach a new line, we find ourselves facing a dead end. This scene that was set up by the preceding line was not concluded in any way. The statement “Equation probable” serves as a signal of a new direction. Personally, I saw no connection between these juxtaposed lines, which makes it very difficult to grasp the meaning of the poem.

Similarly, haphazard jump occurs within a single line. For example, we go from “chain store” and then “sewer opened their books” (34). The only thing that separates the two phrases is an elongated space. Yet the same effect is achieved as in the previously discussed quotation, in which the new phrase/statement skews the tangent set up by the previous phrase “chain store.” Just when we think that we are about to achieve understanding, another phrase catches us and throws us off course again. Thus, Ashbury uses elements of randomness that ultimately de-familiarize the reader with any image by taking it out of context. This makes it particularly difficult to understand the text as we view coherence through the window of organization and structure. Here, however, the contextual organization and structure collapses each time, line after line. 

Just as there were characteristics of Ashbury’s poem that made the text difficult to understand, there were other aspects that made it easier to read. That is, the author often uses personification that ultimately animates an object, which creates a vivid image in the reader’s mind. For example, “the sewer opened their books” creates a weird but still very powerful image in our minds. Similarly, “the flood dragged you” has the same effect. In this way, Ashbury grounds these images in something concrete for the reader to grasp. Yet, he uproots these images just as quickly as he grounds them and deviates to something new.