I think one way John Ashbery writes his poetry is by incorporating word association. He creates viid imagery using conventional associations but then completely changes when he mentions word associations that are imposed by the general public.
In his poem "The Suspended Life", it begins with "She is under heavy sedation Seeing the world" Ashbery uses vivid imagery to appeal to the primitive senses, like when he writes "Reopen in the fresh September breeze" and "Teeth are munching on salad". Here is clear association; a fresh breeze and munching on salad. These images call physical actions and senses that most people experience and draw from when reading these lines.
Then in the second stanza, he talks about the states. He alludes to the fact that the states of the country have different attributes that are strongly associated with them. However, the associations of the states are arbitrary. This seems to be a commentary on the association of political states that we as the citizens impose on them. For example, we impose the idea that Florida is the sunshine state because it is closer to the equator and is exposed to more sun than most states. Yet Ashbery assigns arbitrary associations of the states, claiming that Idaho is the wolverine state, New York is the key state, and Ohio is the flower state. Ashebery further points out word associations when he randomly says that "Bandana is the population state". He calls to attention that we as people randomly create and assign some arbitrary words and associations that are not very real, so to speak.
The fact that the direct imagery of the sense makes more sense than the part about states and what is associated to them makes one think that Ashbery is trying to say that the only thing that we know is real are the things that we experience for ourselves. Everything else that is a theoretical or abstract concept just does not make sense. I think this is drawn on the fact that Ashbery was gone from America for so long to the point where the English language was foreign to him. He saw what was normal to us and basically said there is no real substantial reason for these states to have these specific names or associations of objects. Just pick a random word to call a state and then pick another random object to associate the state with. It does not require touch, or sound, or sight.
I think it is interesting that the more natural images are the more cohesive and sensical lines and sentences in his poetry.
Hi Matt, I liked how you stated that Ashbery uses word associations throughout his poems. The theme of continuity is furthered with the usage of word associations. Because of the disjointedness of the structure, Ashbery uses word associations to create continuous links from one line to another. Especially in the first poem “Tennis Court Oath”, Ashbery repeats words with associations to violence, liquids and aesthetics. For example, “the face studiously bloodied/heaven blotted region” (Ashbery 11). The words ‘blotted’ and ‘bloodied’ are phonic doubles; the usage of phonic doubles creates a rhythmic pattern throughout the poem. The rhythmic pattern helps create continuity throughout the poem as well as help the reader create connects the lines. The usage of ‘bloodied’ and ‘blotted’ also carry out the theme of violence throughout the poem. While structurally the poem is divided into sections rather than stanzas, it’s through the development of lexicons and word associations that the same theme continues. With the development of lexicons and word associations, it creates a general collage of imagery for the reader.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Ashbery's use of word association does create a sort of sense-making haven within the seeming arbitrary randomness of the poetic structure. This contrast is interesting, however, because word association can also be incredibly nonsensical and completely arbitrary. I feel like Ashbery is making some kind of statement with all of his work in this anthology about the nature of randomness and how we think about it. I think he argues that nothing is truly "random," as our own brains will forever be biased. Even if we try to do statistical studies and go about things "objectively," true and pure "randomness" can never be achieved by humans. His poems seem "random" on a superficial level, but it is impossible that the process through which he assigned an identity to each state in the poem "The Suspended Life" was truly random. This idea of word association is interesting because of this. If I were to do a word association exercise, I would come up with very different words than John Ashbery, or anyone else. To other people, the list of words I associate may seem incredibly random, but since they're coming from my own consciousness, they're not actually random at all.
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