From "Lines out of Space"

"let's call it timothy"

all this is yours to keep

with a false sense of something wondrous lost
okay strike up one more time with that balsa guitar play
melodies no sweeter than the most sentimental of us can bear think
however not of what we once had and then let slip
away from this settlement is a whole heap of things that are
not this settlement and of such matters I say, why worry?
the water sugared by the underside of small boats, flaking
early morning drunk with a gulp by a searing day which promises
simply by refusing ever to give us anything leaves us panting
part actual thirst and part are kinds of thirst let’s just forget
happiness was never ours to keep but always yours to make
look out there in the shrubs I sense a scratching
presence a long eared big eyed something we could love
so let go the halter wear a hat and if you are thirsty we invite you then to drink

we have knocked this wall that was restricting us through
and the difference it has made in contrast to before is over-
whelming my wife says it feels like her kite has been borne up
by warm pine-scented winds yes we have left that time behind
us now forever the future is a wine-glass never to be put down
as it is never empty enough or even next to empty
there must be something fuller which fronts
the launch into the desertion of all the platitudes

let’s call it timothy

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The Grenfell Tower Murders

The 72 victims of Grenfell Tower Fire were murdered, victims of the violence of neglect. Here is the proof.
A year ago, a fire started on the fourth floor of Grenfell Tower, due to a faulty appliance. The fire spread quickly up the side of the building because the tower had been refurbished in 2016. Flammable cladding had been added to the exterior building as part of an £8 million refit which appears to have primarily made the tower more cosmetically pleasing. The money was not spent on improving fire safety within the building, it would appear, a cause for concern for residents’ groups for years. The initial cladding that was to be used is not illegal in the UK but its use is restricted in other countries. To save costs a cheaper version was eventually attached to the building, a more flammable version.
Once the fire caught, residents were advised to stay in their flats. In 99% of all cases this is the best advice, because flats are designed to be “fire resistant boxes” surr…

John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

John Ashbery, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
(Manchester: Carcanet, 1977)
First Published (New York: Viking, 1975)

Close Readings and annotations of every poem in the collection March-April 1997 in preparation for In the Process of Poetry: The New York School and the Avant-Garde (Bucknell UP, 2001)

Introduction:

· Shoptaw notes that this return to poetry is dominated by images of waiting, that narrative (especially fairy-tale) returns, as do the musically based titles, there are no prose poems and no fixed forms such as sonnets of pantoums, most are free verse paragraphs, also bring forward a new American speech, more direct and inclusive.

“As One Put Drunk into a Packet-Boat”, 1-2

· Shoptaw notes this was the original title for the collection, marking a self-consciously Romantic return to poetry, recording the thoughts of “I” from afternoon to night, just outside a childhood country home. Has a pastoral crisis narrative in that a summer storm gathers but passes leaving the poet relieved i…

John Ashbery, Some Trees

John Ashbery, Some Trees
(New York: Corinth Books, 1970)
Originally published (New York: 1956)

Close Readings and annotations of every poem in the collection March-April 1997 in preparation for In the Process of Poetry: The New York School and the Avant-Garde (Bucknell UP, 2001) currently in the process of complete update (2013)

"Two Scenes," 9

This is a poem about duality so in this sense the title actually refers to what the poem is ‘about’. John Shoptaw notes, for example, the phonic mirroring of the poem which he sees as an element later phased out as is the “linear introversion” to be found here. Thus we have the following phonic recurrences: “we see us as we”; “Destiny...destiny”; “News...noise”; “...hair/Air”; “-y” and rhymes of section 2; and “...old man/...paint cans”.

This simple but subtle semiotic device is then developed structurally as well, as the title hints. So ‘scene’ 2 reflects back internally onto ‘scene’ 1. “Machinery” recalls the train as does the canal; g…

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