“Don’t Call Me an American; I’m a New Yorker”
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Abstract Expressionism in the Contemporary American Meta Poetry of the New York School
The New York School is made up of poets who drew from abstract expressionist art and themes, recognizable through poets such as Guest, O’Hara, Schuyler, Koch, Ashbery – those who used rich imagery yet abstract sentences and representations of ideas and situations. Poems can be about many things, so at the same time can be about very few things besides the feelings or observations of a poet. Since we can never really see into another person’s mind, the true essence of these poems is quite often a mystery to readers or deemed difficult to fully understand. Yet there are far more layers to these poems than that which we are trying to see “underneath” the words on the page.
Instead of reading a poem and either “getting it” or not, poetry can be viewed as writers merely inviting readers into their world by using language and different stylistic choices. The different forms this language can take and the eras that contribute to them are what make up varying schools of poetry. But the New York School is categorized by poets who were influenced by abstract thinkers and use obscure descriptions of scenes and feelings that tend to leave it to the reader to find meaning.
So, what happens when the veil is lifted, and the writing isn’t so abstract? What comes out of poets breaking through the obscurity and saying, “Reader, I’m having trouble expressing myself.” This is what I’m calling meta poetry – poems that stem from New York School poets needing a different layer of knowing and connection to get their feelings and thoughts across. In short, poems about poems. Their depth, forms, difficulties, failings, and nuances, as explored through the poetry of James Schuyler and John Ashbery. Like a call for help or understanding, these examples seem to be an invitation to the reader, trying to relate feelings and situations in a more direct way than the usual smoke and mirrors characteristic of the New York School.
Many poems of this era are quite meta – discussing the relationship between the poet and the words, describing (however abstractly) the distance between meaning and language that is understandable to a reader or a specific person. For a school of poets so concerned with breaking from form, verse, and conventional types of writing, this concern manifested in direct representations of this struggle on the page. This discernment is helpful not just to categorize poets or schools, but to create a closer connection between poets and their practices in order to understand them better. By not focusing on any one style of writing or parameter, they coincidentally created a movement that led to poets specifically returning to form and discussions of writing itself. Therefore, by tracing these poems in the context of the author’s works, themes of the era, and rejection of conformity, a better understanding of the New York School’s poets is created from studying poetry about poetry – meta-poetry.
Grace,
This is such an interesting and nuanced topic! (Also, John Ashbery was one of my favorite poets that we read, so I was excited when I saw your readings list.) Poems about poems or poems about language are so intricate. They are both distant and intimate. The poet is expressing their struggle with language and form, so they are acknowledging that there is a barrier between an accurate portrayal of their thoughts and the reader, which makes it distant. Though, in the same sense, the act of expressing that they are struggling to put their thoughts into words is deeply personal, which makes the poems intimate.
I believe meta-poetry is a narrow and distinct type of poetry but is not so narrow that you do not have the ability to take your paper in varying directions. Your ideas and intent for the paper are clear, and your proposal is incredibly well thought out and well written. Thank you so much for sharing!