{"id":1991,"date":"2008-07-31T11:40:15","date_gmt":"2008-07-31T16:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/2008\/07\/31\/and-ut-pictura-poesis-is-her-name\/"},"modified":"2008-07-31T11:40:15","modified_gmt":"2008-07-31T16:40:15","slug":"and-ut-pictura-poesis-is-her-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2008\/07\/31\/and-ut-pictura-poesis-is-her-name\/","title":{"rendered":"And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Too much science on this blog, it&#8217;s getting stuffy around here.  How about a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mtvu.com\/on_mtvu\/ashbery\/beauty.jhtml\">poem from John Ashbery<\/a>?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>You can&#8217;t say it that way any more.<br \/>\nBothered about beauty you have to<br \/>\nCome out into the open, into a clearing,<br \/>\nAnd rest. Certainly whatever funny happens to you<br \/>\nIs OK. To demand more than this would be strange<br \/>\nOf you, you who have so many lovers,<br \/>\nPeople who look up to you and are willing<br \/>\nTo do things for you, but you think<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s not right, that if they really knew you &#8230;<br \/>\nSo much for self-analysis. Now,<br \/>\nAbout what to put in your poem-painting:<br \/>\nFlowers are always nice, particularly delphinium.<br \/>\nNames of boys you once knew and their sleds,<br \/>\nSkyrockets are good &mdash; do they still exist?<br \/>\nThere are a lot of other things of the same quality<br \/>\nAs those I&#8217;ve mentioned. Now one must<br \/>\nFind a few important words, and a lot of low-keyed,<br \/>\nDull-sounding ones. She approached me<br \/>\nAbout buying her desk. Suddenly the street was<br \/>\nBananas and the clangor of Japanese instruments.<br \/>\nHumdrum testaments were scattered around. His head<br \/>\nLocked into mine. We were a seesaw. Something<br \/>\nOught to be written about how this affects<br \/>\nYou when you write poetry:<br \/>\nThe extreme austerity of an almost empty mind<br \/>\nColliding with the lush, Rousseau-like foliage of its desire to communicate<br \/>\nSomething between breaths, if only for the sake<br \/>\nOf others and their desire to understand you and desert you<br \/>\nFor other centers of communication, so that understanding<br \/>\nMay begin, and in doing so be undone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>If you would like to understand him (and then perhaps desert him for other centers of communication), <em>Slate<\/em> explains <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2114565\/\">How to Read John Ashbery<\/a>.  Or you could just listen to him directly:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Too much science on this blog, it&#8217;s getting stuffy around here. How about a poem from John Ashbery? You can&#8217;t say it that way any more. Bothered about beauty you have to Come out into the open, into a clearing, And rest. Certainly whatever funny happens to you Is OK. To demand more than this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}