John Ashbery's "Slightly Rumpled Realism"

John Ashbery says that reality includes our imperfect perception of it, and his poems are demonstrations of the indirect "ways" in which reality comes at him. With a cursory reading of Ashbery's poetry, it seems to mirror the modern state of chaos and unconnectedness, but on subsequent readings, after the anxiety of feeling lost has subsided, many connections begin to surface. His ideas on uncertainty and creativity cross disciplinary boundaries in such fields as science, philosophy, mathematics, psychology, history, and religion. Rather than recounting his own experiences in his poetry, he uses abstract language to describe the manner in which he experiences reality, thereby making the experience available for all readers. Major unifying motifs in his poetry are (1) the amalgamation of dualities; (2) the close attention we must pay to learn from the numerous oblique and incomplete ways that knowledge comes to us; and (3) the identification of ourselves through others. Since we never complete our accumulation of knowledge about the world and ourselves, we are perpetually revising, questioning, and continuing our conversation with humanity.