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Overview
Hotel Lautréamont invites readers to reimagine a book of poems as a collection of hotel rooms: each one empty until we enter it, and yet in truth abundantly furnished with associations, necessities, and echoes of both the known and the alien. The collection’s title poem is itself an evocative echo: Comte de Lautréamont was the pseudonym taken by Isidore-Lucien Ducasse, a radical nineteenth-century French writer about whom little is known except that he produced one remarkable presymbolist epic prose poem called The Songs of Maldoror and died of fever at the age of twenty-four in a hotel in Paris during Napoleon III’s siege of the city in 1870.
Addressed to lonely ghosts, lingering guests, and others, the poems in Hotel Lautréamont present a study of exile, loss, meaning, and the artistic constructions we create to house them.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781480459106 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 09/09/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 157 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
About the Author
John Ashbery was born in 1927 in Rochester, New York, and grew up on a farm near Lake Ontario. He has authored more than thirty books of poetry, fiction, drama, and criticism, his work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages, and he has won numerous American literary awards for his poetry, including a MacArthur Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and a National Humanities Medal. His book Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975) won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the National Book Award. For many years, Ashbery taught graduate and undergraduate poetry courses at Brooklyn College and Bard College, and his most recent book of poems is Quick Question, published in 2012. He lives in New York.
Read an Excerpt
Hotel Lautréamont
Poems
By John Ashbery
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 1992 John AshberyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4804-5910-6
CHAPTER 1
LIGHT TURNOUTS
Dear ghost, what shelter
in the noonday crowd? I'm going to write
an hour, then read
what someone else has written.
You've no mansion for this to happen in.
But your adventures are like safe houses,
your knowing where to stop an adventure
of another order, like seizing the weather.
We too are embroiled in this scene of happening,
and when we speak the same phrase together:
"We used to have one of those,"
it matters like a shot in the dark.
One of us stays behind.
One of us advances on the bridge
as on a carpet. Life—it's marvelous—
follows and falls behind.
AND FORGETTING
When I last saw you, in a hurry to get back and stuff,
we wore tape measures and the kids could go to the movies.
I loomed in that background. The old man looked strangely at the sea.
Always feet come knocking at the door
and when it isn't that, it's something or other
melancholy. There is always someone who will find you disgusting.
I love to tear you away from most interests
with besotted relish, and we
talked to each other. Worked before, it'll
work this time.
Look for the strange number at number seven. You see
I need a reason to go down to the sea in ships
again. How does one do that? The old man
came back from looking at it his replies were facile.
Rubber snake or not, my most valued fuchsia
sputtered in the aquarium, at once all shoulders
began to support me. We were travelling in an inn.
You were going to make what design an apple?
Then the hotel people liked us so,
it could have been before a storm, I lie back
and let the wind come to me, and it does, something
I wouldn't have thought of. We can take our meals
beside the lake balustrade. Something either does or
will not win the evidence hidden in this case.
The plovers are all over—make that "lovers," after all
they got their degrees in law and medicine, no one will persist
in chasing them in back lots, the sanded way
I came through here once.
These days the old man often coincides with me; his remarks
have something playful and witty about them, though they do not
hold together. And I, I too have something to keep from him:
something no one must know about.
I'm sure they'll think we're ready now.
We aren't, you know. An icebox grew there once.
Hand me the chatter and I'll fill the plates with cookies,
for they can, they must, be passed.
THE LARGE STUDIO
It's one thing to get them to admit it,
quite another to get soap in your eye.
As long as I can remember I have been cared for,
stricken, like that. No one seems to scold.
I have had so many identity crises
in the last fifty years you wouldn't believe it.
Suffice it to say I am well,
if you like peacock's feathers on pianos
and cars racing their motors,
waiting for dates who never get done with doing their hair.
There have been so many velocipedes, millipedes,
and other words that I'm token senseless.
Just bring me one more drop of the elixir:
that's all I ask.
But when you saw how many colors things come in
it was going to be a long rest of the day.
"Enjoy your afternoon," he said, and it was roses
that you never get enough of and they make you sick.
It was kind of a cable
from which depended seven-branched candelabra
and feathers on the pine trunks
in that witch wood where nobody was supposed to stay—
say, do you think I could? Smell the roses?
Live like it was time?
Lo, it is time.
He raised the horn to his lips.
Such an abundance of—do you mind if I stay,
stay overnight? For the plot of a morrow
is needed to sort out the pegs in, meanwhile enough of me
lasts to give us the old semblance of a staring, naked truth,
with drinks, that we wanted, right?
And because a gray dustman slips by
unnoticed, a thousand cathartic things begin to happen.
Only we know nothing of these. Nothing can take their place.
Today I squeezed a few more drops of color
hoping to blot you out, your face I mean, and then this
extraordinarily tall caller asked if this was something I usually did.
Do I work against the plait often?
And sure, his boots were the right size. I replaced
my little brush and with it the thought of your coming
to absent me after dust and bougainvillea had chimed.
The answer was a nut.
And then there are so many harridans all over
the wall one is encouraged not toward a strict accounting
of all that is taking place, and we have washed, we are nice
for now. And the bowsprit (a word
I have never understood) comes undone, comes all over me, washes
my pure identity from me—help! In the meantime your friend has tunnelled
even as far as us, and it gets to be cold and damp
because the days are no longer making sense, are coming unlocked
in the tin aviary where we pinned them, and no one
right now has any good to say about what temperature
clashes with what other kind statistic we were all against
when it came out but who remembers that now?
Who was even engaged when we first thought of that?
I'll bite your toes, see you in the morning.
Place the canopy on that old chest
allowing for a few grunts and drizzles, please,
and not another word of what you spoke to your father.
THE GARDEN OF FALSE CIVILITY
Where are you? Where you are is the one thing I love,
yet it always escapes me, like the lilacs in their leaves,
too busy for just one answer, one rejoinder.
The last time I see you is the first
commencing of our time to be together, as the light of the days
remains the same even as they grow shorter,
stepping into the harness of winter.
Between watching the paint dry and the grass grow
I have nothing too tragic in tow.
I have this melting elixir for you, front row
tickets for the concert to which all go.
I ought to
chasten my style, burnish my skin, to get that glow
that is all-important, so that some
may hear what I am saying as others disappear
in the confusion of unintelligible recorded announcements.
A great many things were taking place that day,
besides, it was not the taxpayers
who came up to me, who were important,
but other guests of the hotel
some might describe as dog-eared,
apoplectic. Measly is a good word to describe
the running between the incoming and the outgoing tide
as who in what narrow channels shall ever
afterwards remember the keen sightings of those times,
the reward and the pleasure.
Soon it was sliding out to sea
most naturally, as the place to be.
They never cared, nor came round again.
But in the tent in the big loss
it was all right too. Besides, we're not
serious, I should have added.
AUTUMN TELEGRAM
Seen on a bench this morning: a man in a gray coat
and apple-green tie. He couldn't have been over fifty,
his mild eyes said, and yet there was something of the ruthlessness
of extreme old age about his bearing; I don't know what.
In the corner a policeman; next, sheaves of wheat
laid carefully like dolls on the denuded sward,
prompting me to wish of dreaming you again. After the station
we never made significant contact again. But it's all right,
isn't it, I mean the telling had to be it. There was such fire
in the way you put your finger against your nostril
as in some buried sagas erupts out at one sometimes: the power
that is under the earth, no I mean in it. And if all the
disappointed tourists hadn't got up and gone away, we would still
be in each other's reserve, aching, and that would be the same,
wouldn't it, as far as the illustrations and the index were concerned?
As it is I frequently get off before the stop that is mine
not out of modesty but a failure to keep the lines of communication
open within myself. And then, unexpectedly, I am shown a dog
and asked to summarize its position in a few short, angular adverbs
and tell them this is what they do, why we can't count
on anything unexpected. The waterfall is all around us,
we have been living in it, yet to find the hush material
is just what these daily exercises force on us. I mean
the scansions of tree to tree, of house to house, and how
almost every other one had something bright to add
to the morass of conversation: not much, just a raised eyebrow
or skirt. And we all take it in, even laughing in the right places,
which get to be few and far between. Still it is a way of saying,
a meaning that something has been done, a thing, and hearing always
comes afterward. And once you have heard, you know,
the margin can excuse you. We all go back to being attentive
then, and the right signals concur. It stops, and smarts.
NOTES FROM THE AIR
A yak is a prehistoric cabbage: of that, at least, we may be sure.
But tell us, sages of the solarium, why is that light
still hidden back there, among house-plants and rubber sponges?
For surely the blessed moment arrived at midday
and now in mid-afternoon, lamps are lit,
for it is late in the season. And as it struggles now
and is ground down into day, complaints
are voiced at the edges of darkness: look, it says,
it has to be this way and no other. Time that one seizes
and takes along with one is running through the holes
like sand from a bag. And these sandy moments
accuse us, are just what our enemy ordered,
the surly one on his throne of impacted
gold. No matter if our tale be interesting
or not, whether children stop to listen and through the rent
veil of the air the immortal whistle is heard,
and screeches, songs not meant to be listened to.
It was some stranger's casual words, overheard in the wind-blown
street above the roar of the traffic and then swept
to the distant orbit where words hover: alone, it says,
but you slept. And now everything is being redeemed,
even the square of barren grass that adjoins your doorstep,
too near for you to see. But others, children and others, will
when the right time comes. Meanwhile we mingle, and not
because we have to, because some host or hostess
has suggested it, beyond the limits of polite
conversation. And we, they too, were conscious of having
known it, written on the flyleaf of a book presented as a gift
at Christmas 1882. No more trivia, please, but music
in all the spheres leading up to where the master
wants to talk to you, place his mouth over yours,
withdraw that human fishhook from the crystalline flesh
where it was melting, give you back your clothes, penknife,
twine. And where shall we go when we leave? What tree is bigger
than night that surrounds us, is full of more things,
fewer paths for the eye and fingers of frost for the mind,
fruits halved for our despairing instruction, winds
to suck us up? If only the boiler hadn't exploded one
could summon them, icicles out of the rain, chairs enough
for everyone to be seated in time for the lesson to begin.
STILL LIFE WITH STRANGER
Come on, Ulrich, the great octagon
of the sky is passing over us.
Soon the world will have moved on.
Your love affair, what is it
but a tempest in a teapot?
But such storms exude strange
resonance: the power of the Almighty
reduced to its infinitesimal root
hangs like the chant of bees,
the milky drooping leaves of the birch
on a windless autumn day—
Call these phenomena or pinpoints,
remote as the glittering trash of heaven,
yet the monstrous frame remains,
filling up with regret, with straw,
or on another level with the quick grace
of the singing, falling snow.
You are good at persuading
them to sing with you.
Above you, horses graze forgetting
daylight inside the barn.
Creeper dangles against rock-face.
Pointed roofs bear witness.
The whole cast of characters is imaginary
now, but up ahead, in shadow, the past waits.
HOTEL LAUTRÉAMONT
I/
Research has shown that ballads were produced by all of society
working as a team. They didn't just happen. There was no guesswork.
The people, then, knew what they wanted and how to get it.
We see the results in works as diverse as "Windsor Forest" and "The Wife of Usher's
Well."
Working as a team, they didn't just happen. There was no guesswork.
The horns of elfland swing past, and in a few seconds
We see the results in works as diverse as "Windsor Forest" and "The Wife of Usher's
Well,"
or, on a more modern note, in the finale of the Sibelius violin concerto.
The horns of elfland swing past, and in a few seconds
The world, as we know it, sinks into dementia, proving narrative passé,
or in the finale of the Sibelius violin concerto.
Not to worry, many hands are making work light again.
The world, as we know it, sinks into dementia, proving narrative passé.
In any case the ruling was long overdue.
Not to worry, many hands are making work light again,
so we stay indoors. The quest was only another adventure.
2/
In any case, the ruling was long overdue.
The people are beside themselves with rapture
so we stay indoors. The quest was only another adventure
and the solution problematic, at any rate far off in the future.
The people are beside themselves with rapture
yet no one thinks to question the source of so much collective euphoria,
and the solution: problematic, at any rate far off in the future.
The saxophone wails, the martini glass is drained.
Yet no one thinks to question the source of so much collective euphoria.
In troubled times one looked to the shaman or priest for comfort and counsel.
The saxophone wails, the martini glass is drained,
And night like black swansdown settles on the city.
In troubled times one looked to the shaman or priest for comfort and counsel
Now, only the willing are fated to receive death as a reward,
and night like black swansdown settles on the city.
If we tried to leave, would being naked help us?
3/
Now, only the willing are fated to receive death as a reward.
Children twist hula-hoops, imagining a door to the outside.
If we tried to leave, would being naked help us?
And what of older, lighter concerns? What of the river?
Children twist hula-hoops, imagining a door to the outside,
when all we think of is how much we can carry with us.
And what of older, lighter concerns? What of the river?
All the behemoths have filed through the maze of time.
When all we think of is how much we can carry with us
Small wonder that those at home sit, nervous, by the unlit grate.
All the behemoths have filed through the maze of time.
It remains for us to come to terms with our commonalty.
Small wonder that those at home sit nervous by the unlit grate.
It was their choice, after all, that spurred us to feats of the imagination.
It remains for us to come to terms with our commonalty
And in so doing deprive time of further hostages.
4/
It was their choice, after all, that spurred us to feats of the imagination.
Now, silently as one mounts a stair we emerge into the open
and in so doing deprive time of further hostages,
to end the standoff that history long ago began.
Now, silently as one mounts a stair we emerge into the open
but it is shrouded, veiled: we must have made some ghastly error.
To end the standoff that history long ago began
Must we thrust ever onward, into perversity?
But it is shrouded, veiled: we must have made some ghastly error.
You mop your forehead with a rose, recommending its thorns.
Must we thrust ever onward, into perversity?
Only night knows for sure; the secret is safe with her.
You mop your forehead with a rose, recommending its thorns.
Research has shown that ballads were produced by all of society;
Only night knows for sure. The secret is safe with her:
the people, then, knew what they wanted and how to get it.
ON THE EMPRESS'S MIND
Let's make a bureaucracy.
First, we can have long lists of old things,
and new things repackaged as old ones.
We can have turrets, a guiding wall.
Soon the whole country will come to look over it.
Let us, by all means, have things in night light:
partly visible. The rudeness that poetry often brings
after decades of silence will help. Many
will be called to account. This means that laundries
in their age-old way will go on foundering. Is it any help
that motorbikes whiz up, to ask for directions
or colored jewelry, so that one can go about one's visit
a tad less troubled than before, lightly composed?
No one knows what it's about anymore.
Even in the beginning one had grave misgivings
but the enthusiasm of departure swept them away
in the green molestation of spring.
We were given false information on which
our lives were built, a pier
extending far out into a swollen river.
Now, even these straws are gone.
Tonight the party will be better than ever.
So many mystery guests. And the rain that sifts
through sobbing trees, that excited skiff ...
Others have come and gone and wrought no damage.
Others have caught, or caused darkness, a long vent
in the original catastrophe no one has seen.
They have argued. Tonight will be different. Is it better for you?
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Hotel Lautréamont by John Ashbery. Copyright © 1992 John Ashbery. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Publisher's Note,Light Turnouts,
And Forgetting,
The Large Studio,
The Garden of False Civility,
Autumn Telegram,
Notes from the Air,
Still Life with Stranger,
Hotel Lautréamont,
On the Empress's Mind,
The Phantom Agents,
From Estuaries, from Casinos,
Cop and Sweater,
Musica Reservata,
Susan,
The King,
The Whole Is Admirably Composed,
By Forced Marches,
Autumn on the Thruway,
The Little Black Dress,
Part of the Superstition,
The Art of Speeding,
American Bar,
From Palookaville,
Another Example,
Avant de Quitter Ces Lieux,
The White Shirt,
Baked Alaska,
Private Syntax,
Not Now but in Forty-five Minutes,
In Another Time,
Withered Compliments,
The Wind Talking,
Joy,
Irresolutions on a Theme of La Rochefoucauld,
A Call for Papers,
Love's Old Sweet Song,
Wild Boys of the Road,
Le Mensonge de Nina Petrovna,
Of Linnets and Dull Time,
Korean Soap Opera,
A Driftwood Altar,
Poem at the New Year,
Central Air,
The Youth's Magic Horn,
Brute Image,
Of Dreams and Dreaming,
Seasonal,
Kamarinskaya,
Elephant Visitors,
The Great Bridge Game of Life,
The Departed Lustre,
Villanelle,
A Sedentary Existence,
Erebus,
The Old Complex,
Where We Went for Lunch,
As Oft It Chanceth,
Retablo,
A Mourning Forbidding Valediction,
I Found Their Advice,
French Opera,
A Stifled Notation,
Haunted Stanzas,
Livelong Days,
Quartet,
[untitled],
Oeuvres Complètes,
Just Wednesday,
In My Way / On My Way,
No Good at Names,
Film Noir,
In Vain, Therefore,
The Beer Drinkers,
That You Tell,
A Hole in Your Sock,
And Socializing,
Revisionist Horn Concerto,
The Woman the Lion Was Supposed to Defend,
Harbor Activities,
It Must Be Sophisticated,
Alborada,
How to Continue,
About the Author,