After receiving wide acclaim and numerous awards during the early and middle years of his career, John Ashbery continued to strike out in new directions in the 1990s, writing in a style at once playful and cerebral, relaxed and precise, dreamlike in its imagery and associations yet exquisitely attuned to mundane reality. Here in one authoritative annotated volume are seven complete collections from this crucial period in which he solidified his standing among the greatest of American poets.
The volume begins with the landmark book-length poem Flow Chart (1991), a stunning tour de force that reveals Ashbery’s mastery of “the entire orchestral potential of the English language,” as Helen Vendler writes. Weaving a spell through its long lines, which unfold in mesmerizing and surprising ways, Flow Chart offers an account of the poet’s mind that complements Ashbery’s earlier Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror but also provides a vision of the collective “dream of everyday life that was our / beginning, and where we still live, out in the open, under clouds stacked up in a holding pattern / like pictures in a nineteenth-century museum.” As Benjamin Kunkel observes, “Anyone who cares about what’s going on in American literature must sit down . . . and read the poem through.” Prepared in consultation with the author, this edition restores a missing page—thirty-eight lines in all—inadvertently dropped during the revision process of the poem for its first publication.
Ashbery’s poems from the 1990s range brilliantly across his varied interests and obsessions—opera, film noir, French poetry, and the visual arts, most notably the work of the outsider artist Henry Darger, the point of departure for the book-length poem Girls on the Run (1999). In evidence at every turn are Ashbery’s seemingly boundless inventiveness, a pitch-perfect ear for American speech, and an exuberant erudition that transports the reader to unexpected places.
Rounding out the volume is a selection of twenty-six uncollected poems, among them “Hoboken,” a collage poem that mischievously pillages Roget’s Thesaurus, “The Hailstorm in Belgrade, May 24th 1937,” inspired by a remote memory of a Life magazine article Ashbery read as a nine-year-old, and “Victrola floribunda,” first published opposite a reproduction of a painting of an imaginary flower by the artist Dorothea Tanning, for which it provided the name.
Mark Ford, editor, is the author of three acclaimed collections of poetry, Landlocked, Soft Sift, and Six Children; his Selected Poems was published in 2014. His book-length interview, John Ashbery in Conversation with Mark Ford, was published in 2003. His most recent book is Thomas Hardy: Half a Londoner (2016).
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这本诗集,读来仿佛置身于一处迷宫,四壁是由日常的碎片和突如其来的哲学低语搭建而成。它并非以清晰的叙事线索取胜,相反,它挑战着我们对“意义”的传统期待。我发现自己不得不放慢语速,甚至在某些句子前停下来,像是在解码一段加密的信息。那些看似不经意的并置——也许是厨房里的光影,下一秒就跳跃到了对时间本质的沉思——迫使读者进行主动的意义构建。诗人的笔触极其轻盈,却又深藏着一种近乎狡黠的智慧。他似乎总是在我们即将抓住某个清晰意象时,又巧妙地将其抽离,留下的不是虚无,而是一种更广阔、更具流动性的感知空间。初读时,可能会感到一丝困惑,仿佛错过了什么关键的线索,但多读几遍后,那种不确定性本身就成了一种美学体验。它像极了一场清晨的梦,你努力想抓住情节,却只留下了挥之不去的色彩和情绪的残留。这种风格对那些习惯了线性逻辑的读者来说,可能需要一个适应期,但对于渴望在文字中探索意识边缘的探索者,这将是一场丰盛的智力冒险。这本书的魅力在于其永不完全揭示的本质,它邀请你,而不是强迫你,进入它的世界。
评分这本书的节奏感非常独特,它并非遵循传统诗歌抑扬顿挫的韵律,而是像一个喋喋不休但又极度聪明的观察者在自言自语。语言的密度极高,我常常需要退回去重读几遍,才能捕捉到那些隐藏在看似平铺直叙的语句下的细微的讽刺或深刻的洞察。它展现了一种对“此时此刻”的执着,但这个“此刻”总是被过去的回忆和对未来的模糊预感所渗透。诗中充满了对具体物体的细致描绘,但这种描绘似乎不是为了固定物体本身,而是为了通过描绘物体来探究“观看”这个行为本身是如何塑造现实的。最让我印象深刻的是诗人处理“身份”问题的方式——身份似乎不是一个固定的核心,而是一系列不断变化的、相互冲突的角色扮演的总和。这种多重性使得阅读体验变得极为丰富,每一次重读,似乎都会捕捉到之前被忽略的那个“声音”或那个“视角”。这本书需要耐心,但它给予的回报是清晰且深刻的:它教你如何在日常的喧嚣中,听见那些被主流叙事所压抑的、更真实的声音。
评分阅读这些文字时,我产生了一种强烈的“失重感”,仿佛脚下的地面不再坚实可靠。这不是一本可以让你带着明确目的去阅读的书,它更像是一种邀请,邀请你沉浸到一种语言的流动状态中去。诗人似乎对语法规则抱有一种既尊重又戏谑的态度,他时常将句子拉伸、扭曲,直到它们在断裂的边缘摇摇欲坠,但总是在最后一刻巧妙地自我修复,恢复一种脆弱的平衡。我注意到诗中大量使用了一种近乎学术化的、精确的词汇,但这些词汇被放置在极其个人化和情感化的情境中,产生了奇特的张力。这使得诗歌既拥有了某种智识上的重量,又保持了极强的情感穿透力。很多时候,我读完一个段落,并不能用“这个诗写了什么”来概括,而更倾向于描述“这个诗让我感觉到了什么”——一种漂浮在语义之上的情绪涡流。对于那些希望从阅读中获得纯粹娱乐或简单信息的人来说,这本书可能会显得过于“困难”或“疏远”,但对于那些愿意投入时间和心力去陪伴诗人进行这场语言实验的人,它将是极富回报的。
评分这是一次对语言边界的勇敢探索,它拒绝被归类,拒绝被简化。如果你期待一个清晰的开端、发展和结尾,你在这里找不到。相反,你会发现自己被直接抛入到一个充满未完成对话和未解决的张力的场景中。诗人的句法结构常常出乎意料,他仿佛在用一种极为个人的语法来重构我们理解世界的方式。我特别喜欢他那种不动声色的幽默感,它不是那种直白的笑话,而是一种对人类境况的无奈且充满温情的揭示,常常在最严肃的探讨中突然冒出一个让人会心一笑的转折。这种文学处理方式,极大地提升了阅读的参与度,读者不能被动地接受,而必须积极地与文本互动,填补那些看似留白的地方。对于那些厌倦了陈词滥调和可预测主题的读者来说,这本书犹如一股清新的、甚至有点刺激的空气。它挑战了文学的舒适区,迫使我们重新评估“美”和“意义”在我们个人经验中的位置。阅读它,更像是参与一场私密的、智识上的交流,而非简单地消费内容。
评分如果用音乐来比喻,这本作品就像是爵士乐的自由即兴段落,充满了意想不到的和弦转换和节奏的错位。每一个诗节都像是一个独立的乐章,有时旋律优美流畅,充满了清晰的画面感,比如描绘某个特定时间点的光线如何切割房间;而紧接着,风格会骤然转变,语言变得破碎、跳跃,充满了晦涩的代词和结构上的不确定性。这种高低起伏和风格的剧烈变化,使得阅读过程充满了惊喜和挑战。我特别欣赏诗人处理日常材料的方式,他能够从最平凡的事物中,比如一张旧照片、一次无意的对话,提炼出一种普世的疏离感和存在的荒谬性。他似乎并不在乎读者是否完全理解他每一个词语背后的精确指涉,他更关心的是创造一种特定的“心灵状态”。这种状态是清醒的,但又带着一丝迷离的梦幻感,是对现代生活本质的一种深刻的、不加粉饰的呈现。这本书不提供慰藉,它提供的是一种坦诚的审视,迫使我们正视我们思维运作的非线性本质。它更像一面镜子,映照出我们自身心智的复杂与混乱,而非提供一个固定的答案。
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