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Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: Poems (Poets, Penguin)

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Self-portrait of a self-aggrandizing man

This collection of poetry is really just a pseudo-intellectual attempt to capitalize on the confusion and the disorientation of the post-modern era. The poetry makes little sense, and its meaning can't be pasted together even if one looks at it as it is apparently meant to be looked at - the poet's response to abstract art. The words on the page don't even make enough sense to be accepted into the genre of surrealism.

To be fair to the book, many of the fragmented pieces of poetry that the "poet" pieces together do have a rich, beautiful flavor to them. Some scattered pieces have even stuck in my brain for years as the inexplicable beauty of them did present themselves as poetical, deep, almost musical even in the absence of rhythm or rhyme. But then again, so does Dr. Seuss. And you don't see Dr. Seuss fashioning himself in such a condescending light as Ashberry and his cronies. And this book doesn't even rhyme.

I would have given this book 3 estrellas instead of 2 if it weren't for the last factor that bothered me about this work - the price. It says here that I paid $16.00 for this thing 4 years ago and the price hasn't gone down much since. At less than a hundred pages this thing is a total rip-off. It could at least be hardcover for that price. But I guess mediocre poets have got to make their living somehow. For shame, John Ashberry, for shame.

Edit: The price has gone down since I reviewed this. It is my pleasure to grant Ashberry a third star, as promised.

Ashbery's Self-Portrait
The American poet John Ashbery's (b. 1927) book "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" received extraordinary accolades upon its publication in 1975. The book won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Critics Circle Award. The book, especially the lengthy concluding poem for which it is named, solidified Ashbery's reputation as a major American poet and remains his most widely-read work. The book consists of 35 poems, including the title poem. I am in the midst of reading the Library of America's collection of Ashbery's poems from 1956-1987 and wanted to pause to try to take stock through this important collection.

Ashbery's poetry and this volume resist paraphrase. Each poem includes lines and figures which are indivually striking and often beautiful; but the poems cannot be read discursively. The diction shifts markedly in the poems from the solemn to the profane. There are sudden shifts in person and in tenses. Frequently, lines or sections are clear enough, but a poem as a whole will appear opaque. There is a sense in Ashbery's work of cutting through the tendency to rationalize and to focus on the joy of experience in its diversity. The concreteness and detail of the poem show a love of things in their variety and keen emotional responses. The poems frequently have the sense of an interior monologue or a discussion among friends. For all their difficulty, the poems have a certain lightness of touch. The poetry is urbane and shows great knowledge of art, music, literature, movies, and popular culture. And with reading, some sense of what Ashbery is about becommes clear.

"Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" was a watershed book for Ashbery because it is somewhat more accessible than his earlier avant-garde books. Yet the difficulties remain. The title poem, Ashbery's masterpiece, is, on one level accessible to read. It moves in a narrative reflection, and can be followed, up to a point. This is still a difficult poem which will bear close and repeated readings.

The title poem is based on a painting of 1524 of the same name by Parmigianino that now is in the Kunsthistoriche Museum, Vienna. The painting shows a reflection of the artist on a convex mirror. It is marked by a seemingly distorted and large right hand, and the somewhat feminine yet intense face of the artist staring at the viewer. In his poem, Ashbery addresses the artist, discusses and questions him about his painting, and quotes commenters on the painting contemporary and modern. He describes the work and his reaction to it, e.g.

"That is the tune but there are no words
The words are only speculation
(From the Latin speculum, mirror):
They seek and cannot find the meaning of the music."

The suggestion is that words are inadequate to capture reality, which must be conceived imaginatively. As the poem progresses, it discusses tradition and interpretation and perspectivism in understanding reality. The artist's vision is brought forward as Ashbery meditates on modern life and its cacophony. The poem becomes its own reflection of Ashbery's understanding of the creative endeavor.

The short poems in this volume are overshadowed by the Self-Portrait. These poems tend to be even more elliptical than this major poem of the volume. In my reading, I tried to identify the works that I could respond to while passing over, for the present, others that seemed to me obscure. This might be a good way for other readers to approach the book.

The poems I enjoyed include the first poem, "As One Put Drunk into the Packet-Boat, the title of which is based on a poem called "Tom May's Death" by Andrew Marvell. (1621 --1678). Ashbery begins with the words "I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free" which in the context of the poem seems to speak of the renewal of the creative endeavor. The "Poem in Three Parts" begins with a startling phrase ("Once I let a guy blow me") but proceeds to an exploration of how one responds to experience: "Who goes to bed with what/ is unimportant. Feelings are important./ Mostly I think of feelings, they fill up my life/ Like the wind, like tumbling clouds/ In a sky full of clouds, clouds upon clouds.""

There is a charm and a picture of adolescent sexuality in "Mixed Feelings". The poem "The One Thing that can Save America" with its sense of nostalgia as Ashbery describes the "timeless" truths of warding off danger "Now and in the future, in cool yards,/In quiet small houses in the country,/Our country, in fenced areas, in cool shady streets." The poems "Tenth Symphony", "Fear of Death" and "City Afternoon" are among others that I enjoyed.

This book is difficult, modern poetry that may not appeal to all readers. The poems in this book are evocative and I think a sense of them can be got from sympathetic reading. This book deserves its reputation as a major work of American literature.

Robin Friedman

Through a Glass Murky
A confounding, self-indulgent collection by America's master of Poetica Obscura.

As a teacher of literature and a poetry lover since childhood, I've read thousands upon thousands of poems from a number of poets of a number of languages, and I'll be blasted if this is not the first time I got absolutely NOTHING out of reading a book of poems. In fact the only line from this one that I recall is "I let a guy blow me once."

It is this personalization of verse (to the extreme, where "feeling" becomes more important than meaning) that has destroyed poetry as a popular art form in this country. (One can scarcely imagine asking someone to memorize and recite anything from this book.)

Give me Richard Wilbur or even Sarah Teasdale any time. Shoot, I'll even take Rod McKuen at this point.

A Pulitzer for this? Say it ain't so, Joe!

A Classic Worth Your Time
John Ashbery is probably the most famous and most productive of the Post-Modernists & the New York School of poets. His career has been long and productive. He remains to this day very visible, frequently publishing his poems in the New Yorker. It was, in fact, within the pages of the New Yorker that I first encountered Ashbery in my youth. I hated his work immediately. In fact, it took years for me to discover the incredible beauty and intellectual stimulation within Ashbery's poetry. Over the years I have come to appreciate Ashbery's more recent, or later work most of all. Although I appreciate the greater simplicity of his earlier work, and the great, convoluted anguish of his middle work, it is the vision of his later work that engages me most.

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror belongs primarily to his middle period. It, of course, famously won many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. I own this edition of the work and it has held up well with multiple readings, both the actual paperback, and the text. When I initially read this volume I found it strangely troubling and thought-provoking. I felt almost physically anguished as I read it over and over again. When I first encountered it I surrendered nearly a complete month to repeatedly devouring Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. However, in the end I found that it is still not my favorite of his works. Also, I must confess that I found the short poems in the volume much more engaging than the long, title poem.

As a poet, myself, for years I have found endless inspiration within Ashbery's writing (as well as the writing of many others, including the particularly noteworthy Charles Simic). I think for those first approaching Ashbery's work, this is probably the best place to start. I believe you will find that you either love or hate his work. If you discover that you love it, move on to other works such as The Mooring of Starting Out - a 1 volume edition of his first 4 volumes of poetry, or Where Shall I Wander - one of his latest works...or, there are so many others to choose from, all good, solid works of poetry. If you've already read other works by Ashbery, but have not read this work, you need to get yourself a copy and get to it. I am convinced that it would be a mistake to overlook this very important and engaging work.

Sashimi of Post-Modernity
This collection of poems, especially the title poem, is jarring and bewildering in its swiftness and complexity, and in the crossed-paths of struggle, you will encounter spectacular images and conclusions. The images like "now from the unbuttoned corner moving out" and "recurring wave of arrival" are vividly childlike and nostalgic but also remind me of nothing I have encountered before. Ashberry's images sometimes bang against each other like the organized chaos of bumper cars. If you find yourself lost, keep reading and re-reading, no one needs to point out subtlety. Stick around, the confusion and overlapping delay the release at the end of his movements, which rival T.S. Eliot, in their polite, mythic send-offs.