John Ashbery - Breezeway

Australia HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd. Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia www.harpercollins.com.au Canada HarperCollins Canada 2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada www.harpercollins.ca New Zealand HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive Rosedale 0632 Auckland, New Zealand www.harpercollins.co.nz United Kingdom HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF, UK www.harpercollins.co.uk United States HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 195 Broadway New York, NY 10007 www.harpercollins.com Rendering poetry in a digital format presents several challenges, just as its many forms continue to challenge the conventions of print. In print, however, a poem takes place within the static confines of a page, hewing as close as possible to the poets intent, whether its Walt Whitmans lines stretching to the margin like Route 66, or Robert Creeleys lines descending the page like a string tie.

The printed poem has a physical shape, one defined by the negative space that surrounds ita space that is crafted by the broken lines of the poem. The line, as vital a formal and critical component of the form of a poem as metaphor, creates rhythm, timing, proportion, drama, meaning, tension, and so on. Reading poetry on a small device will not always deliver line breaks as the poet intendedwith the pressure the horizontal line brings to a poem, rather than the completion of the grammatical unit. The line, intended as a formal and critical component of the form of the poem, has been corrupted by breaking it where it was not meant to break, interrupting a number of important elements of the poetic structurerhythm, timing, proportion, drama, meaning, and so on. Its a little like a tightrope walker running out of rope before reaching the other side. There are limits to what can be done with long lines on digital screens.

At some point, a line must break. If it has to break more than once or twice, it is no longer a poetic line, with the integrity that lineation demands. On smaller devices with enlarged type, a line break may not appear where its author intended, interrupting the unit of the line and its importance in the poems structure. We attempt to accommodate long lines with a hanging indentsimilar in fashion to the way Whitmans lines were treated in books whose margins could not honor his discursive length. On your screen, a long line will break according to the space available, with the remainder of the line wrapping at an indent. This allows readers to retain control over the appearance of text on any device, while also indicating where the author intended the line to break.

This may not be a perfect solution, as some readers initially may be confused. We have to accept, however, that we are creating poetry e-books in a world that is imperfect for themand we understand that to some degree the line may be compromised. Despite this, weve attempted to protect the integrity of the line, thus allowing readers of poetry to travel fully stocked with the poetry that needs to be with them. Dan Halpern, Publisher

Cover design by Quemadura Cover art: John Ashbery, Breezeway, 2014, collage Turandot and Other PoemsSome TreesThe Tennis Court OathRivers and MountainsThe Double Dream of SpringThree PoemsThe Vermont NotebookSelf-Portrait in a Convex MirrorHouseboat DaysAs We KnowShadow TrainA WaveSelected PoemsApril GalleonsFlow ChartHotel LautramontAnd the Stars Were ShiningCan You Hear, BirdWakefulnessThe Mooring of Starting Out: The First Five Books of PoetryGirls on the RunYour Name HereAs Umbrellas Follow RainChinese WhispersWhere Shall I WanderA Worldly CountryNotes from the Air: Selected Later PoemsCollected Poems, 19561987PlanisphereQuick QuestionA Nest of Ninnies (with James Schuyler) Three PlaysReported Sightings: Art Chronicles, 19571987Other Traditions (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures) Selected Prose BREEZEWAY . Copyright 2015 by John Ashbery. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use. For information please e-mail the Special Markets Department at SPsales@harpercollins.com. FIRST EDITION ISBN: 978-0-06-238702-8 EPub Edition MAY 2015 ISBN 9780062404886 15 16 17 18 19 QK/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 FOR DAVID KERMANI

The fifty-foot old masterpiece, that awful necklace, is that good for you? I mean, do you like it any better? Treestumps? Oh, Mr. Salteena, dear, its good before anything else is.

Were not opening today. Her intentional steel embrace scuttled it. Which is not to say youre not to proceed. On the contrary, we like you more than when we were at school, we and they. There are good times in everybodys satchel, nor do we all get a free pass. That would be a split decision, as they call it.

How else is the planned brotherhood to float forward? Watch hershell donate a medal to the crowd for a flag. Its why we call each other members. If we can get this stuff out of here, a little bit more power in the shins will come to seem appropriate. Thats your cue. Dont let on I was here, helping with the tables sometimes. Ah it was awful the way they rushed him, past us and a few stragglers.

We had been told to meet up with destiny at a corner of the fairgrounds, a pearl in fragments. Its so fun. A dollop here, a mess of particles there. Not everyone sees it as you do, which is right for them, no matter what territory they own and at times wander back to, unthinking, forgetting if a lurid sky can be just one thing, or under certain conditions definitive. Why I never ...

He has a lazy father in Minnesota.

I hope you never have to do this in life, with its crazy little darkened rooms. People are standing, an accurate jumble. Famille rose happy campers. And if the water tastes funny, she must be pretty young. That came from a tree. Sarabande. Sarabande.

A dance no one dances anymore. Except maybe in heaven, where they dont have better things to do. These clucks behind a fence ... Now, of course, Ill have passed it on differently. Theyre here, instead of just wondering what theyre doing. Gotta keep the red onion.

You move a lot in a cab. Not to stand up and eat their community. A few scheduling disasters later the daughters came down to lift us off the shore. We were branded with the name Lot. The waves beat them to it. We renounced our offshore inheritance.

Oh, what difference does it make when the most mutable among us augment the mystery beyond all proportion, so as to accept the thanks that ingratitude inevitably trails in its wake. For whatever reason.

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