"Practically every poem either of us has written seems to me to be about love in some form or another."
"Practically every poem either of us has written seems to me to be about love in some form or another." You'll be surprised who said that to whom.
This is a weird little exchange that's part of a longer, weirder exchange John Ashbery did with Kenneth Koch in the 60s. The talk of "physical love" and this moment, directly below, interest me the most:
JA: Well, we might just as well have forgotten it, for all the difference it makes. Also what about sex, which seems to make no appearance in either of our works – that I can think of at the moment.
KK: Do you mean the details of sexual intercourse? Practically every poem either of us has written seems to me to be about love in some form or another.
See how that moment comes up in the fuller exchange below and click here for the full transcript.
JA: It seems to me that forgetting plays a bigger role in our poems than either of us is willing to own up to. Not only do we forget the place where we live, as I pointed out earlier –
KK: You did not say that. You said we didn't write about the place in which we live.
JA: Well, we might just as well have forgotten it, for all the difference it makes. Also what about sex, which seems to make no appearance in either of our works – that I can think of at the moment.
KK: Do you mean the details of sexual intercourse? Practically every poem either of us has written seems to me to be about love in some form or another.
JA: Well, so what happened to those details?
KK: I hope they are still there.
JA: Look again.
KK: Yes, I've just gotten word that they are still there. On the other hand, there are a number of things that would not be out there at all if we didn't write about them.
JA: Does this mean that you think these things are important?
KK: What things?
JA: What it is that's there.
KK: Do you mean the things we write about or the details of physical love?
JA: The things that wouldn't be there unless we wrote about them, blockhead.
KK: It is you who are the blockhead for not making your questions clearer.
JA: Maybe this has some bearing on the topic of our discussion.
KK: In what way?
JA: I can't remember what it was that we were talking about.
KK: You seemed to be talking about ambiguity; and then you seemed to think that being a blockhead had something to do with it.
JA: I think we should clear up the question as to whether the ambiguity in our work is the result of modern life's having made us so ashamed of our experiences that we cannot write about them in any other way, or whether we feel that if we turn quickly around we'll discover something that wouldn't have happened otherwise.
