In QUICK QUESTION John Ashbery extends an invitation to readers to accompany him into the extraordinary worlds of the everyday, experienced through the box of tricks that is language. He revels in twist and transformation, the constant mutability of words and things: 'Whatever stops playing is the enemy of the incomplete'. He can stop us in our tracks with the accuracy of his perception: 'Somewhere in America someone is trying to figure out / how to pay for this'. Aware of the paradoxes of his own writing, he teases us with questions: 'Is it all doggerel and folderol?' 'Would I lie to you?' Either way, his invitation is irresistible: come in, see what happens.
- ISBN13 9781847772282
- Publish Date 31 January 2013 (first published 4 December 2012)
- Publish Status Transferred
- Out of Print 3 November 2023
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Carcanet Press Ltd
- Format Paperback
- Pages 128
- Language English