Introductory
John Ashbery, a big name in American poetry belongs to the New York School of Poets, founded by the experiments of Manhattan. That was not an ordinary institute of education but it housed more than seven talented painters, poets and literary geniuses, including Robert Motherwell, Frank O'Hara and Barbara Guest. John Ashbury's vision was to experiment and test new horizons in poetry and add its relation to other art, which includes painting as well.
Before arguementing John Ashbury as a modern poet, it is necessary to know what modernism actually is. Modernism means to take a break from the customs of the past and innovating, and developing something new from the raw materials of the past. Poets and artists, following modernism, have a keen desire to move on instead of following "trodden" paths. John Ashbury, unlike classic Richard Wilbur, breaks poetry from the bondage of iambic pentameters and associates its relationship with painting. Just as the good old Simonides described poetry as "a painting with a gift of speech in it" almost 2500 years ago.
Sources Behind Ashbery's Modern Art
World War First affected almost every living being on the planet earth but artists took the most impression from it. In Ashbery's genius, one can easily trace out the surge of Dadaism, odd and mingled images of Surrealism, sharp imagism of Ted Hughes, expression and impression in his poems.
Techniques
The major technique which Ashbery implies in his work is mainly governed by his own will of painting the verse. He literally paints an image or multiple images through words. For example in Melodic Trains:
It's as though a visible Chorus called up the different
Stages of journey, singing about them and being them:
Not the people in the station, not the child opposite me
With currant fingernails, but the windows, seen through,
Moreover, he has bidden a farewell to rhyme his verse as his predecessors did. He wrote in the same order as it came to his mind. That is why critics regard him as the major poet for a shorter period of time.
The Painter is Ashbery's practical presentation of the intercourse between art and poetry. In the very poem, Ashbery utilizes the technique of surrealistic automatism. This technique involves painting in the sub-conscious realm, just as a child's prayer, which is a silent manifestation of surrealistic automatism. But the poet is compelled by the people, living in the buildings to give up painting the "sea's portrait".
So there was never any paint on his canvas
Melodic Trains is another surrealistic masterpiece of Ashbery in which he has made use of stream of consciousness technique. In simple terms, this poem is written without narrating incidents accordingly, but these incidents are piled up randomly as they come up in one's mind. For instance, the poet starts the poem with a little girl asking for time in a train and then he suddenly jumps from the train to a mountain (just for an analogy for his robes) but he, then, sits back mentally in the particular train meditating about the meaning of life sub-consciously.
Another point in his being modern is his use of simple and colloquial language in his poetry. Unlike his forefathers, who practised obscurity and weighty vocabulary in their poetic art, he favours using common-day language to convey his idea to every Tom, Dick and Harry effectively.
Although his language is simple yet figurative like that of Robert Frost. For instance, he terms the orthodoxies with the people living in "ruined" buildings and the sea as untouched topics of life, waiting to be revealed. In Melodic Trains, he also terms train as an on-going journey towards the unknown paths of life. Just as a pencil is guided through the ruler, man is tempted by his inner wills to achieve his goal.
His images are normal, which are taken from the everyday objects of life. We see the silent sea, a roaring train gashing forth the air, an unpainted canvas, a little girl being toyed by her toy watch, vast ruined buildings and brush. Such images take his poems to the next level.
Conclusion
Ashbery's poems carry a unique blueprint in terms of both clarity and creativity. Such uniqueness makes him a modern poet figuratively and unmetrically.
