Houseboat Days: Poems
by John Ashbery (Goodreads author!)
published
1999
(first published 1977)
by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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binding
Paperback, 88 pages
isbn
0374525900
(isbn13: 9780374525903)
description
This reissue of a book of thirty-nine poems, first collected in 1977, reminds us of Ashbery's astonishing explorations (to use Donald Barthelme's word...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 115)
Read in October, 2008
I don't "get" Ashbery. I have no doubt this is a five star collection for many, and there were many lines that left me both baffled and amazed ("The idea of great distance / Is permitted, even implicit in the slow dripping / Of a lute."), but looking back, I cannot connect lines I liked with specific poems. It's all one strange flow of image and word, with poem titles only serving as pauses. There is a vague, dreamlike sense of mood. But after a while, I found myself craving...more
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I pursued this book after a conversation with friends about which Ashbery is best. And though I don't know that the debate is settled in my mind, I will say that the charm and intelligence and elegance of Ashbery is brimming over in Houseboat Days. Should I listen to his suggestion, that thinking can obstruct life? I don't know.
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Read in January, 1983
Another brilliant Ashbery book. Now he has become trickier, less grandiose, more detailed...still wonderful poems, more mysterious, like who is the I in these poems, and are we the we of the poem?
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