Breezeway : New Poems

A bold, striking new collection of poems from one of America’s most influential and inventive poets. With more than twenty poetry collections to his name, John Ashbery is one of our most agile, philosophically complex, and visionary poets. In Breezeway, Ashbery’s powers of observation are at their most astute; his insight at its most penetrating. Demonstrating his extraordinary command of language and his ability to move fluidly and elegantly between wide-ranging thoughts and ideas—from the irreverent and slyly humorous to the tender, the sad, and the heartbreaking—Ashbery shows that he is a virtuoso fluent in diverse styles and tones of language, from the chatty and whimsical to the lyrical and urbane. Filled with allusions to literature and art, as well as to the absurdities and delights of the everyday world around us, Ashbery’s poems are haunting, surprising, hilarious, and knowing all at once, the work of a master craftsman with a keen understanding of the age in which he lives and writes, an age whose fears and fragmentation he conjures and critiques with humor, pathos, and a provocative wit. Vital and imaginative, Ashbery’s poems not only touch on the “big questions” and crises of life in the twenty-first century, but also delicately capture the small moments between and among people. Imaginative, linguistically dazzling, and artistically ambitious, Breezeway is John Ashbery’s sharpest and most arresting collection yet. The Dream Of A Rarebit Fiend -- The Sad Thing -- Chinese Fire Drill -- Seven-year-old Auroch Likes This -- Dans Le Métro -- Wherever Your Sun Takes You -- The Welkin -- City Of Bouncers -- A Breakfast Radish -- Breezeway -- Listening Tour -- Hand With A Picture -- A Greeting To My Brothers And Some Of My Brothers-in-law -- Leaf, Resting -- Mrs. Foster's Pears -- Andante And Filibuster -- The Ritz Brothers On Moonlight Bay -- By The Bypass -- Strange Reaction -- Tall Order -- Botched Rollout -- The Cloud Of Knowing -- Chafed Elbows -- Bunch Of Stuff -- East February -- Heading Out -- Farm Hubub -- Stupid Petals -- Thereat -- Eleventh Pleasantry -- Rambling Statement -- The Enthusiasts -- Dramedy -- The Undefinable Journey -- The Pie District -- Domani, Dopodomani -- The Goofiad -- Queer Subtext -- Dickie's Border Vacation -- A Fountain In The Street -- The Undeserving River -- Summoned To Beach Spot Says Accused -- By Guess And By Gosh -- Flowers, Restoration -- Blueprints And Others -- Supercollider -- Separate Hearings -- Ruffle Theory -- The Price Of Eggs -- All That, And More -- Warm Regards -- The Honor Roll -- A New Desire -- Homeschooled -- The Sponge Of Sleep -- Colors -- Gravy For The Prisoners -- Glove Compartment -- Pushover -- Honestly, -- Front And Pearl -- Psychic Bitters -- A Drugstore In Duluth -- Samba Héroïque -- Position Paper -- Forget Where I Heard It -- Cheap Legs -- Be Careful What You Wish For, -- A Sweet Disorder. John Ashbery. Poems. With more than twenty poetry collections to his name, John Ashbery is one of our most agile, philosophically complex, and visionary poets. In Breezeway, Ashbery's powers of observation are at their most astute; his insight at its most penetrating. Demonstrating his extraordinary command of language and his ability to move fluidly and elegantly between wide-ranging thoughts and ideas0́4from the irreverent and slyly humorous to the tender, the sad, and the heartbreaking0́4Ashbery shows that he is a virtuoso fluent in diverse styles and tones of language, from the chatty and whimsical to the lyrical and urbane. Filled with allusions to literature and art, as well as to the absurdities and delights of the everyday world around us, Ashbery's poems are haunting, surprising, hilarious, and knowing all at once, the work of a master craftsman with a keen understanding of the age in which he lives and writes, an age whose fears and fragmentation he conjures and critiques with humor, pathos, and a provocative wit