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Chinese whispers : poems / by John Ashbery.
LIBRA - Rare PS3501.S475 C48 2002 Mathews copy
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LIBRA - Special PS3501.S475 C48 2002
Available in person
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Van Pelt Library PS3501.S475 C48 2002
By Request
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Ashbery, John, 1927-2017, author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- American poetry--21st century.
- American poetry.
- Genre:
- Poetry.
- Physical Description:
- viii, 100 pages ; 24 cm
- Edition:
- First edition.
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2002.
- Summary:
- Chinese Whispers is the British name of a game called Telephone in America. According to a certain "Professor Hoffmann" in his book Drawing Room Amusements (1879), "the participants are arranged in a circle, and the first player whispers a story or message to the next player, and so on round the circle. The original story is then compared with the final version, which has often changed beyond recognition." "Chinese Whispers" is also the superb title poem in this new collection of sixty-three poems by John Ashbery. In these works, as perhaps in much poetry, the verbal nucleus that is the original incitement toward a poem undergoes twists and modulations before arriving at its final form. The changes are caused not by careless listening to the speech of others, but by endlessly proliferating trains of ideas that a single word or phrase ignites in the poet's mind. These alter the face of the poem even as they contribute to it and become part of its fabric. As in a sea change the poem has been transformed, often into "something rich and strange," but the strangeness is that of thought being opened up, like a geode, to reveal unexpected facets of meaning.--Publisher's description.
- Contents:
- A nice presentation
- The Variorum edition
- The sleeping animals
- Disclaimer
- Disagreeable glimpses
- Theme park days
- In whatever mode
- From the diary of a mole
- Too much sleep is bad
- The big idea
- Why not sneeze?
- A sweet place
- View of Delft
- Postilion of autumn
- This deuced cleverness
- Unpolished segment
- Mordred
- The lightning conductor
- I asked Mr. Dithers whether it was time yet he said no to wait
- Haven't heard anything
- Chinese whispers
- In the time of pussy willows
- The American
- The seventies
- All that now
- Truth gleams
- Little sick poem
- A man clamored
- Local legend
- Meet me tonight in dreamland
- Ornery fish
- Portrait with a goat
- The decals in the hallway
- Echolalia rag
- The evening of Greuze
- As umbrellas follow rain
- Under cellophane
- Reminiscences of Norma
- Obsidian house
- Oh evenings
- Intricate fasting
- Alone, I
- Winter daydreams
- Runway
- Random jottings of an old man
- Her cardboard lover
- Moon, moon
- Syllabus
- On his reluctance to take down the Christmas ornaments
- The business of falling asleep
- Hints and fragments
- If you ask me
- The haves
- Like air, almost
- The blessed way out
- Sight to behold
- Prisoner's base
- The business of falling asleep (2)
- Real time
- Heavenly days
- Sir Gammer Vans.
- Local Notes:
- Gotham Book Mart Collection copy has dustjacket retained.
- LIBRA Rare PS3501.S475 C48 2002 Mathews copy presented to the Penn Libraries in 2018 by Harry Mathews. Copy has inscription: "for harry 'We all came to be here quite naturally'--p.8 with love and hugs, John. New York, December 24, 2002." Dust jacket retained.
- ISBN:
- 0374122571
- 9780374122577
- OCLC:
- 49531005
- Online:
- Contributor biographical information
- Publisher description
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