Commotion of the Birds

October 17, 2016
For more than 60 years now, Ashbery (Breezeway) has carried the flotsam and jetsam of conversational language, thought, and culture on cool, unhurried currents. The hallmarks of his style—including juxtaposition, movement among a wide range of tones and affects, and the courting and resisting of a rational progression of thoughts—are on full display in this new collection. Though these tactics have become commonplace in American poetry (largely thanks to Ashbery’s influence), there is no doubt about his virtuosity in using them. The movement in the poems is lithe and alluring. As one poem declares: “It was so fun getting used to you./ This was as modern as it had ever been.” Indeed, the gestural, multivoiced, and collagelike terrain of Ashbery’s poems may resonate more with qualities that define life in the 21st century than it did with those of the previous century. And the most rewarding moments in the collection get at something more elemental and timeless, as when he writes, “You’re right. The ballads are retreating/ back into the atmosphere.” A reader new to Ashbery has no reason to begin here—though one needs no outside knowledge of his work to read and appreciate this collection—but those familiar with his oeuvre will find the work as sharp and satisfying as ever.

December 1, 2016

In his 27th book of poetry, Ashbery brings readers what he is famous for: nontraditional poems that use wordplay, humor, unexpected collisions of unrelated subjects, and surprising alterations in grammar and syntax. His poems have two effects: they produce a sense of wonder but also sometimes generate confusion, or, as he writes in one poem, "In these situations/ I'm trying to figure out what is going on." But who can argue with lines such as "Levels of drudgery dissolve in the saline light/ of imperfect cities placed to test you here, on the road to/ somewhere even more accidental"? In this collection, Ashbery tackles friendship, sex, popular culture, and the political and domestic realms yet always from oblique angles. His poems hint, but only hint, at societal problems: "Misguided police draped in cheerful Macbeth plaid/ remembered never to toll the dying." While many of these poems make language new, jolting readers into a different awareness with their unexpected mix of words or phrases, others feature lines that are not memorable or at times even clunky. Cliches appear often, but some Ashbery fractures to humorous effect, for example, "The crow went wild." VERDICT From a much-honored poet whose works are still best for adventurous readers, these pieces are for lovers of modern poetry not based on narrative or landscape.--Doris Lynch, Monroe Cty. P.L., Bloomington, IN

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