26 de jul. de 2011

A hora de dar um repouso ao esteta, para que ele não se canse e pare

INTERVIEWER

Your poems often have a spoken quality, as though they are monologues or dialogues. Do you try to create characters who then speak in your poems, or is this all your own voice? In the dialogues perhaps it is two aspects of your own voice that are speaking.

JOHN ASHBERY

It doesn't seem to me like my voice. I have had many arguments about this with my analyst, who is actually a South American concert pianist, more interested in playing the piano than in being a therapist. He says, “Yes, I know, you always think that these poems come from somewhere else. You refuse to realize that it is really you that is writing the poems and not having them dictated by some spirit somewhere.” It is hard for me to realize that because I have such an imprecise impression of what kind of a person I am. I know I appear differently to other people because I behave differently on different occasions. Some people think that I am very laid-back and charming and some people think I am egotistical and disagreeable. Or as Edward Lear put it in his great poem “How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear”: “Some think him ill-tempered and queer, but a few find him pleasant enough.” Any of the above, I suppose. Of course, my reason tells me that my poems are not dictated, that I am not a voyant. I suppose they come from a part of me that I am not in touch with very much except when I am actually writing. The rest of the time I guess I want to give this other person a rest, this other one of my selves that does the talking in my poems, so that he won't get tired and stop.

(O tal link.)