John Ashbery

Ron Silliman was posting about John Ashbery last month. I left this comment:

I have a strange association with Ashbery. I was reading Houseboat Days when the cat of my childhood was dying. He would cry & cry and I would stroke him but he could not stay still more than a moment and would wander back & forth and begin again to cry. Because I needed something to distract me and because I discovered I could read Ashbery both with & without attention (it seemed to work equally either way) I read Houseboat Days while we waited for morning and the vet's office to open.