Well, I think reading Ashbery’s poetry opens up certain channels of awareness, that it puts the brain in a particularly helpful and creative state.

I’ve been thinking about something Stephen Burt says about Ashbery which Daniel E. Pritchard quotes in his review of _Planisphere_ (http://www.criticalflame.org/verse/0110_pritchard.htm):

“When you interpret Ashbery at all, you risk having sceptics tell you that you made it all up: that the poems demonstrate ingenuity not from the poet but from his interpreters, who find music in static, meaning in randomness, synthetic silk in a succession of sow’s ears…”

I think the risk is definitely there and it’s one that should be taken seriously, but all of those activities listed (finding music in static, demonstrating ingenuity of interpretation, etc) sound like pretty positive things to me. “Making it all up” can be beneficial– I mean there is something to be said of writing that will elicit creative responses (like Christopher Robinson’s at Flatmancrooked– I loved that Machine, by the way). I guess I want to suggest that Ashbery’s work urges us to creatively respond to our environment–no matter how random or static-filled it may seem.

By the way this begs for expansion:
“I’m tempted to argue—but I won’t and, if so, only by way of paraleipsis—that reading Ashbery and grappling with his ‘meaning threats’ can help recalibrate our minds so we can better navigate the clamor and confusion of our contemporary reality.

But I can understand how expanding on it would prove a vast undertaking.

Oh, have you seen this satirical take on how Ashbery writes poetry?
http://www.flatmancrooked.com/archives/5178

http://booktrustadmin.kentlyons.com/images/image5018.jpg

Definitely, the cover of _Planisphere_ is a lot snazzier than the covers of _A Worldly Country_ (2007) or _Where Shall I Wander_ (2005)–both are also from Ecco.

But if you haven’t read Ashbery in a while, I would check out those two before _Planisphere_; I think they have a bit more fluency and verve… But–actually–why not read them all? I think with late Ashbery you can dip in and out of him easily.