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.
Because each photograph is only a fragment, its moral and emotional weight depends on where it is inserted. A photograph changes according to the context in which it is seen: thus Smith's Minamata photographs will seem different on a contact sheet, in a gallery, in a political demonstration, in a police file, in a photographic magazine, in a book, on a living-room wall. Each o these situations suggest a different use for the photographs but none can secure their meaning.
I doubt that I could create a character I loathed simply because when a character takes life, it is impossible not to be a little amazed by the phenomenon, and to find that the amazement has something of the quality of delight.
To get to play someone who was in some capacity the King of Harlem, that meant something to me. Deep within my bones. I was inspired by the energy that I knew to be a real thing.
I don't design clothes, I design dreams.
When I work, I'm just translating the world around me in what seems to be straightforward terms. For my readers, this is sometimes a vision that's not familiar. But I'm not trying to manipulate reality. This is just what I see and hear.
When you have a reputation for making not only good songs but great albums, that in itself creates added artistic pressure. But, at the end of the day, I guess that pressure is something I welcome.
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