John Ashbery: first encounter

I think of it as soft abstractions, easier to read than others from this period, ease to enter the work works to expand its depth. He writes simply and magnificently. This is not narrative poetry, or surrealist, none of the Beat’s rambling trappings either, none of that lost feeling of some Language work, not much of the brusk chauvinism of the New York men.

The style is not loose or free wheeling, it seems to adheres to Olson’s request that each thing creates the next thing, writing by field. It is controlled, in a soft way.

The world is here, this is not just of the mind. It is grounded work: thoughts that happen while staring out the window at a tree, or field, or city, whatever it is outside and within your view. The mind moves, slows down. Yet, his poems are not the fine tuned and detailed observations that happen with other writers like Mei Mei Berssenbrugge, for example, whose work also seems to come from deep observation, attunement.

Ashbery is loose while hyper intentional, I will read more.