Chinese Whispers: Poems [Hardcover]

John Ashbery (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 22, 2002

Chinese Whispers is the British name of a game called Telephone in America. According to a certain "Professor Hoffmann" in his book Drawing Room Amusements (1879), "the participants are arranged in a circle, and the first player whispers a story or message to the next player, and so on round the circle. The original story is then compared with the final version, which has often changed beyond recognition."

"Chinese Whispers" is also the superb title poem in this new collection of sixty-three poems by John Ashbery. In these works, as perhaps in much poetry, the verbal nucleus that is the original incitement toward a poem undergoes twists and modulations before arriving at its final form. The changes are caused not by careless listening to the speech of others, but by endlessly proliferating trains of ideas that a single word or phrase ignites in the poet's mind. These alter the face of the poem even as they contribute to it and become part of its fabric. As in a sea change the poem has been transformed, often into "something rich and strange," but the strangeness is that of thought being opened up, like a geode, to reveal unexpected facets of meaning.

John Ashbery has been called "America's greatest living poet" by Harold Bloom. Now in his seventy-fifth year, he continues to write poetry that is dazzlingly inventive and original.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ashbery's most recent style equal parts cracked drawing room dialogue, 4-H Americana, withering sarcasm and sleeve-worn pathos has been perfected over five or so books and adapted by generationally diverse poets from James Tate to Max Winter. The late Kenneth Koch's description of Ashbery as "lazy and quick" remains thoroughly apropos; these 61 page-or-two poems can seem brilliantly tossed off, much like those in his 2000 collection, Your Name Here. The title is appropriate too: Chinese Whispers is the British name for the game of Telephone, where children (or adults) gather in a circle and whisper a "secret" word or phrase into the ear next to them. The last person says it out loud; the results are often "off" in funny, surprising and telling ways. The surprise, in poem after poem, is that high and low comedy and offhanded delivery can read like simultaneous expressions of pain and regeneration and that they do not dull after multiple permutations are spun out: "The beginning of the middle is like that./ Looking back it was all valleys, shrines floating on the powdered hill,// ambivalence that came in a flood sometimes, though warm, always, for the next tenant/ to abide there." As with all Ashbery's work, these poems leave plenty of room for readers to abide.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Since winning the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1975 for Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, Ashbery has been regarded as one of our major poets. This thoughtful new collection may not be any great advance-with Ashbery's elliptical style, how far can one go?-but it does maintain his momentum. The eye is immediately caught by some lines in an early poem-"Our lives ebbing always toward the center,/ the unframed portrait"-which feel like a key to Ashbery's aesthetic; he doesn't want us to look only at the center, at the shapes that predominate, but at the details along the edge. Thus, at first reading, his poems can seem like a string of out-of-sequence images, but they do bleed a definite atmosphere. Often, that atmosphere is disquieting or at least restless, but in these autumnal pieces a sense of calm predominates. True, the tale "jerks/ back and forth like the tail of a kite," and frogs and envelopes mutter, "That was some joust!" But the energy crackles only momentarily; here, things repeatedly fall, ebb, dissipate, or descend. Not that these are dreary pieces; there is a light touch and consistent pacing throughout, making this a satisfying read. Given Ashbery's stature, this is recommended for all contemporary poetry collections.
Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1 edition (October 22, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374122571
• ISBN-13: 978-0374122577
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,762,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars variation is the premium, October 26, 2003

By 

volodya88 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chinese Whispers: Poems (Hardcover)

I have read Ashbery's first books, such as: Some Trees, and The Double Dream of Spring, Houseboat Days, and also much of the Selected Poems, and I think this latest book, Chinese Whispers, is comparable to his best work.
As I read Chinese Whispers, and then reread it, I found how it is similar to the variation found in an anthology. The Best American Poetry 2003 contains all kinds of forms and tones, etc. and Ashbery, in C. W. takes on this kind of task, the task of not settling in a rhythm, to keep moving. Even toward the winter of his career, Ashbery is still searching; he seems to still be searching like a beginning poet, yet a new poet with a strong voice.

7 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Downhill Still, November 2, 2002

By 

Grey (The West) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chinese Whispers: Poems (Hardcover)

The mild decline of a great talent continues. Johnny hasn't been on point since Wakefulness, but we can thank somebody that this collection, however mediocre, still easily trumps the ghastly "...Rain". Please--I adore Ashbery, so no hot-dung tossing. There are some great pieces in this latest: "Little Sick Poem", "Half-Kiss'd", the second to last poem whose title escapes me...

...go to the library, but don't buy the thing unless you're compiling a comprehensive collection. A lot of blubber, filler.

I'd give it 2.5 stars, if I could--the last half gold.

4 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A tragedy and a travesty, wrapped in black and yellow, November 25, 2004

By 

WordWizard "WW" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chinese Whispers: Poems (Hardcover)

Before reading this glittering failure, I desperately feared for the future of poetry in this country; but seeing as nothing could possibly be worse than this, my fears are suddenly abated. Dear post-post-modern reader, brace yourself for the eloquent, rightfully loaded death sentence of the New York School of American poetry (now at least we have a perfectly valid excuse to plan its funeral and move on to new and better things!). At best, this centerless literary labyrinth, alive with heartless, overwrought, sharp-toothed little imps, represents a disgracefully grandiose attempt to self-promote and to further beat the already beaten-to-death poetics of the abstract expressionists, for the sole benefit of the American, eurocentric, cigar-smoking literati and its smug conformist aplomb. This is writing for the sake of seeming clever (much like this arguably unfair review), but it is taken to the most obnoxious level possible, with highly referential super-high brow humor, tensionless line breaks, tricky word riddles that seem to smirk snobbishly at you as you read; and, worst of all, there is a profound absence of emotional impact. The prose pieces are only slightly more readable. In fact, the best thing about this book is the cover, a storm of sharp, yellow ,leaf-like forms ripping into a black background - very cool. Anyway, back to the heart of the matter; if you have money to burn, don't waste it on this. Go buy a pack of gum and an issue of Hustler instead. If you're an Ashbery fan, plunge into the beautifully weird cover art and think fondly of his past work, but don't dare open the book...bad idea.