Reviews

Breezeway: New Poems by John Ashbery

julziez's review against another edition

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challenging funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? N/A
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

b_p's review

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2.0

Ashbery is always... well, Ashbery. But later Ashbery is especially Ashbery. By "Ashbery", I mean frequently indecipherable avant-garde babble fodder. Maybe I'm not "NYC" enough to "get" Ashbery. Maybe, in my terminally uncultured state, I will be permanently reduced to "putting" far too many "words" in "quotation" "marks" while reviewing him. However, as in all Ashbery collections, there are some moments of hilarious poetry gold. Who says that Ashbery isn't trying to be funny? Among the WTF content of Breezeway, I still found many enjoyable moments.

Exhibit A:
"Forget any mistranslations, / miscommunications. The past / loves you, baby. / Go sandpaper a horse."

To be clear, I am all for experimenting with the English language. Poetry (especially with John Ashbery as leading linguist) is the perfect laboratory to conduct such madcap mischief. That being said, I cannot completely recommend this particular collection (to just any Goodreads/internet user) of Ashbery's work in good conscience. If you love Ashbery and/or poetry, go ahead. If you hate poetry or are at the very least skeptical of its value, this collection will only turn you off more. As somebody who recently constructed* a new bookshelf exclusively to house his collection of poetry, I fall into the former camp.

*Put together a bookshelf ordered from Target.com.

tay_af's review against another edition

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5.0

I’m not the biggest poetry person in the world but I really enjoyed this collection
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