"Voyage in the Blue" Engagement #11
December 05, 2022
This is noncommittal. A bit much. The patterning becomes rote at some point. But whatever. Ashbery is just cool. Just a really cool guy. This is what I’ve arrived at, after all of it. Because he is uncool. Because he clearly cares and doesn’t at all. He is erudite and sophomoric. Writes about the important things and about nothing. Because he is dodgy, hard to pin down. Because he is right in front of you. Every Ashbery poem is about Ashbery writing a poem. He pokes and prods the form. He is invasive. He is indifferent. None of this should work. I love that it kind of feels as though he’s pulled off a massive trick on all of us, “Voyage” another lark; a cheeky, dubious scheme. I love that maybe I don’t get it. That “Voyage” is a gift, endowed with mystic properties; a riddle, a map, that no one’s yet deciphered. He is frustrating and great. The mark has been made. I could read “Voyage in the Blue” everyday for the rest of my life, content in a peace-war state. I could also never read it again. Ashbery would prefer neither, both.