Well, "audience" is a mass noun...

I'm always interested to read reports for readings I wanted to attend but missed, but it's sometimes even more interesting to read a report by someone else on a reading I did attend.



I had a completely different experience of this reading. First, I should say right up front that I'm an alumna of the New School, the editor of the journal there, and that DL has been my teacher, mentor, and friend for the last couple of years. (And as an aside, might I suggest that his "last-avant garde" claim for the NY School is issued as a challenge?) And maybe I should also point out that while the NSU poetry forums are open to the public (usually for an entrance fee of 5$, though this time I saw nobody collecting this time), they are designed for the program's students. Obviously these facts color my experience, but that's what makes it my experience, right?



Room 510 holds maybe 80 comfortably, but at JA's reading I'd estimate there were 120 minimum. Probably the smallest crowd I've seen at an Ashbery reading in New York (since moving here in 1995, I've managed to catch him at least once a year). And since the wine and snacks were free, it was also the cheapest.



The NSU forums (in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, & children's writing) are by nature informal, intimate, usually rather small gatherings--30 or 40 students, a handful of faculty members, the occasional "woman from the public." Usually some of the visiting poet's work is read and discussed in the weeks prior to the event, and students shuffle off to class at 8pm, immediately after the forum, where further discussion often takes place. The forum itself, in other words, is sometimes only a third of the whole. The moderator begins by asking questions--as the students often seem shy to begin. The fact that the audience members know each other and the host (different faculty members for the different genres) can and does color the tone of the event, naturally.



First, Ashbery read for a little more than 30 minutes. Poems from Chinese Whispers mostly, and then new poems. The new poems were exciting to hear, though harder for me to keep, being previously unread.



DL did quote an article on JA in his introduction to get a laugh. But the quotation was amusing--and it was later the basis some of DL's questions. He read several paragraphs from a review of CW by John Tranter in which Tranter posits a difference between JA the poet and JA the person (and JA the readable, the interviewee, etc.). It is all about Ashberyness, or John Ashbery the brand. (Somehow I thought he said this essay was from Fence, but I guess I misunderstood.) I think this is funny, and I'm not nervous about it:



"John Ashbery (the person) has always maintained a discreet distance from the hoo-ha surrounding new product development, but he did admit--or at least Ashbery the interviewee admitted--that he doesn't think too much of the title poem in that book: in a 1985 interview with the present author he said 'I've never really cared for 'Self-Portrait' very much, and I must say I didn't like it any more when I reread it. But I obviously had to put it in [to his 1985 Selected Poems] because people would expect it to be there'."



The plug for Great American Prose Poems that I remember actually came later, and from Ashbery's mouth, after DL asked him a question about prose poetry--paraphrases as "you've been writing prose poetry more recently, what attracts you to it, what other poets who write prose poetry do you recommend, etc." The conversation between them was easy and joking--they've known each other for years. I'd say it was their genuine affection for one other coming through--and of course, a little showmanship, DL hamming it up for his students. (And yeah, he encourages the students to read his books, especially the anthologies and the critcism. But why not?) But readings without any showmanship are boring. I'd rather stay home.



Ashbery did say he wrote about an hour a week--sometimes less. DL quoted JA as having said so several years back and asked if it were still true. I heard this question as a reassurance to the students. JA is genuinely funny about it. And DL had put on that jokey way he has. They were trying to entertain us, and most people seemed to laugh not in a nervous way, but because their schtick was working. In another setting, like at KGB where I saw DL introduce JA another time, the mood was completely different--more like your "standard" intro.



Two of poets from the 40s Ashbery mentioned were Joan Murray (whereupon DL helpfully mentioned my name and the fact that I've written about her, to my amusement & flushed cheeks) and Helen (somebody). JA has mentioned in the past the possibility of editing such an anthology, so this question was about whether or not the book was still in JA's plans.



I read the mention of Oscar Williams, who edited mostly terrible anthologies and always included his wife who was also fairly terrible, as a subtle joke at the self- and cross-promoting DL & JA were doing of each other's work. But hey, maybe that's just me. JA did point out that these old anthologies are interesting b/c readers sometimes stumble upon a gem. Helen--not Duberstein, was it?--was an example of this. (Tom Disch also recommends old, out-of-print anthologies as a interesting investigation into tastes, poetic endurance, etc.)



I thoroughly enjoyed this event--except the heat was up too high and it was awfully crowded in the back--folks were standing on the steps outside and sitting on benches in the hallway. They couldn't possibly have heard much.



So there you have it. A completely different take from a completely different audience member. I mean no disrespect to Sasha at all--y'all know me better than that--just marvelling here at how our experiences differed. Wild, isn't it?