John Ashbery’s “The Problem of Anxiety” is an emotional poem that intertwines themes of depression and aging. The poem is short and seemingly straightforward. However, there are many contradictions within Ashbery’s poem that allude to the narrator’s uneasy and distorted state of mind.
I want to start by analyzing the poem’s tone. Throughout the entire poem there is a sense of defeat, but there are also many layers underneath his melancholy tone and deliberate pacing that are somewhat contradictory. The narrator begins by sounding inviting. “Fifty years have passed / since I started living in those dark towns / I was telling you about” is how he begins his poem. Right off the bat, he is asking the reader to recall a prior piece of a conversation. This suggests that there is a level of rapport and comfort. He then goes on to say, “Well, not much has changed,” suggesting that he and his reader know one another. Perhaps, his is speaking to a friend from a long time ago or maybe he is sitting down to talk at the start of a monthly therapy session. Regardless, Ashbery is providing his reader with a sense of familiarity and trust. As we move further into the poem, his tone becomes avoidant. He writes, “would you / put in the things I’ve carefully left out.” The narrator is withdrawing from the conversation that he, himself, started with the reader. He no longer wants to open up about the “dark towns.” In these lines, he is attempting to shift the focus of the poem from himself to his audience. To me, it almost seems as though he is pointing a finger at the reader, especially when he ends the eighth line with “you” because it causes the pace to break for a beat when reading the poem aloud. He then mentions “pain, and sex,” and relationships, all of which provoke emotional responses. But Ashbery never grants the reader with an opportunity to explore the emotions that come along with these topics. Instead, his tone moves into a state of despair. He ends this poem with the idea that someone “will never be appeased.” This leaves the reader feeling a sense of hopelessness, which often comes along with anxiety and depression.
Moving on to his word choice and use of metaphors, there is absolutely a sense of contradiction within the first stanza. He tells his reader that “Fifty years have passed” but also “not much has changed.” But he then immediately states he “still can’t figure out / how to get from the post office to the swings in the park.” The idea that he wants to leave his adult responsibilities behind (going to the post office) and feel like a child again by going to the park suggests the narrator has in fact experienced change in the sense that he has grown up. Furthermore, he writes, “my hair is the color of dandelion fluff.” He clearly has aged quite a bit. His hair is gray, which makes sense because it has been fifty years. So, there is a physical change present within this stanza, but he is telling his reader that things are still the same. My interpretation of this is that he is feeling stagnant or as though he is merely moving through the motions of life. It also made me feel hopeless, as though he is trying his best to get mentally better, but he simply is not able to make any progress.
Another metaphor that puzzles me slightly is the “glass eye” mentioned in his fourteenth line. I have two theories as to who or what the “glass eye” is. Because the eye “will never be appeased,” I initially thought the eye represented a parental figure. It is obvious that he is depressed that he is no longer a child. This leaves me to wonder if one of his parents never told him they were proud of him, leaving him still searching for that sense of approval. He mentions the “glass eye” is sitting on “the bronze mantel,” so I envisioned a framed picture of his parents (“glass” representing the glass in the frame) sitting on the mantel in his house. I also wondered if the “glass eye” was representative of a mirror that sits on his mantel. If that is true, then his audience may have been his own reflection all along. This would fit with why he decided to point out the color of his hair. Perhaps, he was asking himself to recall memories in the first stanza, and maybe he is pointing his finger at himself in the start of the second stanza. This would suggest that he cannot appease himself. He utters the dreadful word “never,” alluding to the idea that he will never love himself or will never feel mentally well. This theory weighs heavily on me, and I would love to know what everyone else thinks. Who is “the glass eye”?
I want to thank Ashbery for being so raw and human in this piece. I believe he truly captured the hopeless feeling of being depressed or anxious, making it a very relatable poem. That being said, I want to leave you with that idea in mind. The poem touched me, and the poem touched you because it was relatable. Even on your most hopeless of days, you are not alone.
Gabby, first – I love that you end with the idea that even on our darkest day, we aren’t alone. That you use how Ashbery felt to prove this is pretty remarkable. I love the idea that in our aloneness, we are actually in the company of other people that also feel alone.
I really appreciate the conclusion you draw about Ashbery’s feelings about growth and change in relation to the metaphors he chooses. I hadn’t considered the connection between the post office of adulthood and the playground of childhood. I struggle with literal translations in poems sometimes, but this makes a lot of sense in your explanation. It has me considering other ways that might describe the responsibility of adulthood, like visiting the bank, or grocery shopping. The “dandelion fluff” one was obvious even to me, but I really enjoyed the imagery of it. Such an interesting way to describe the aging process, isn’t it?
The idea that his audience might be his own reflection in a mirror won’t leave my head since I read it. I think your idea of a picture of his parents is a possibility, but I can’t shake the feeling that your mirror idea is closer to the truth. I can imagine Ashbery having the argument with himself, looking himself in the eye and shaking his head, pointing his finger and raising his voice.
One other thing that strikes me about your analysis is that you notice the layered nuance of his language, and what it reveals about his situation. While it is an invitation, it is also a remembering. One of the things that happens in many of the NY School poems is this idea of a conversation that is being recorded, but never from the start. The reader comes in in the middle, and the expectation is that they are part of the history of the conversation. It’s such an interesting way to involve a reader, treating them as though they are privy to the unspoken parts, as though they have insight into the intimate world just beyond the grasp of everyone else. There is such a familiarity in that technique that doesn’t happen in many other types of poems.
I think your analysis is insightful, and it helped me notice things that were just beyond my grasp. Thank you!
^^^ I forgot to log in, but this is Dee!
Thanks for the conversation here! I’d like to put this in conversation with Alice’s reading of this poem as well. You both focus on different aspects of the poem, but you also capture the poem’s sense of malaise, longing, and, as Gabby notes, avoidance. I like the idea that the shift to the “you” begins interrogating the reader’s potential reflection on anxiety, suggesting the impossibility of accessing or knowing other minds even as a sense of static monotony (“not much has changes”) suggests that our inaccessibility is also rooten in utter boredom.
TO me, the bronze eye is all about surveillance, the sense of being watched, interrogated, questioned. Anxiety personified, perhaps, as anxiety cannot be appeased. And yet you find the poem relatable in that odd combo of honesty and avoidance. Fascinating stuff!