John Ashbery at NYU [by Rosanne Wasserman]

John Ashbery read last week to a packed house.  Fortunately for us, Rosanne Wasserman was there and filed this report:

I think of John’s readings as continuations of the party that started with Kenneth, Frank, and John, with Jane and Jimmy, Larry and Willem, Alfred Leslie and Rudy Burckhart, at Harvard, the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, the Cedar Bar, or back in the apartment by the El, in Southampton, Chelsea, Paris, Hudson. There are martinis and movies and typewriters, art on the walls, and talk. It’s like the party at the end of William S. Wilson’s novel Birthplace:Moving into Nearness, a party described in a letter from a grandfather to his granddaughter:

I have been writing, and I am happy to be able to write, to tell you, Octavia, the words I hear in my head as I write, that we are having a party, and have been for some time now, and we want, with words I am trying to deliver alive from my heart, to invite you. You are welcome to join us in our consonance, at any time, to come as you are, to take potluck with us. Feel free to bring a friend, or partner. Don’t wait until you are ready.

Read the full review here.

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[Rosanne Wasserman]

http://cwp.as.nyu.edu/page/podcast

The entire reading is here, at the NYU Creative Writing Program's website, as a podcast, courtesy of Deborah Landau.