The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and cannot be.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the deep yearning of art to connect with its audience, yet acknowledges the inherent distance that exists between them.
John Ashbery's quote reflects a complex emotional layer in artistic expression, emphasizing how a piece of poetry or any artwork can possess a longing for personal connection with its audience. It embodies a sense of sadness rooted in this desire, illustrating how the art wishes to resonate and become part of the viewer's experience, yet remains ultimately separate and unattainable, capturing the bittersweet nature of artistic communication.
In practice
In a discussion about art during a gallery visit, this quote could underline how art reflects our inner emotions.
The evening light was like honey in the trees When you left me and walked to the end of the street Where the sunset abruptly ended. The wedding-cake drawbridge lowered itself To the fragile forget-me-not flower. You climbed aboard. Burnt horizons suddenly paved with golden stones, Dreams I had, including suicide, Puff out the hot-air balloon now. It is bursting, it is about to burst
But always and sometimes questioning the old modes_x000D_ _x000D_ And the new wondering, the poem, growing up through the floor,_x000D_ _x000D_ Standing tall in tubers, invading and smashing the ritual_x000D_ _x000D_ Parlor, demands to be met on its own terms now,_x000D_ _x000D_ Now that the preliminary negotiations are at last over.
Then let yourself love all that you take delight in_x000D_ _x000D_ Accept yourself whole, accept the heritage_x000D_ _x000D_ That shaped you and is passed on from age to age_x000D_ _x000D_ Down to your entity. Remain mysterious;_x000D_ _x000D_ Rather than be pure, accept yourself as numerous.
until only infinity remained of beauty
The sun fades like the spreading_x000D_ _x000D_ Of a peacock's tail, as though twilight_x000D_ _x000D_ Might be read as a warning to those desperate_x000D_ _x000D_ For easy solutions.
Life is beautiful. He who reads that_x000D_ _x000D_ As in the window of some distant, speeding train_x000D_ _x000D_ Knows what he wants, and what will befall.
When we play an unaccompanied Bach suite we may compare ourselves to an actor in Shakespeare's day, creating scenery which did not exist at all, through the power of declamation and suggestion. So in Bach. There is but one voice -- and many voices have to be suggested.
Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces.
No man with a conscience can just bat out illustrations. He's got to put all his talent and feeling into them!
The collision of hail or rain with hard surfaces, or the song of cicadas in a summer field. These sonic events are made out of thousands of isolated sounds; this multitude of sounds, seen as totality, is a new sonic event.
All great art is revolutionary because it touches upon the reality of man and questions the reality of the various transitory forms of human society.
I love performing outside because it's as if the heavens are open and the elements become part of the stage show as well - you know, the wind and the rain and the thunder. It's almost as if there's a sense of invocation in performance.
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