As Filreis explains in his Jacket2 blog post announcing the new episode, "Some Trees," written when the poet was only 21 years old on November 16, 1948, is "preceded only by 'The Painter' among verse written when Ashbery was an undergraduate at Harvard that the poet chose to keep and publish later." He also notes an interesting train of thought that comes up "halfway through the conversation" when
Dag begins to describe the speaker's foray among or into the protective natural space of the trees as an act of cruising. This, Carlos and Hamit readily agreed, helps explain the hierarchy of activity: first touch, then love, then later explain. This is not a poem in which even the people explain things. The trees are expressive models of unlanguaged amazing embodiment, putting on the 'still performance' that strikes the exciting balance between the intentional and chanced-upon relationship.
You can listen to this latest program and read more about the show here. PoemTalk is a joint production of PennSound and the Poetry Foundation, aided by the generous support of Nathan and Elizabeth Leight. Browse the full PoemTalk archives, spanning more than a decade, by clicking here.
