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Wakefulness

John Ashbery

199879 pagesabout 1–2 hours
1998
first published
  • 1998Farrar, Straus and Giroux · 79 pages · ENGISBN 9780374285982
  • 1998Carcanet Press · 80 pages · ENGISBN 9781857543346
  • 1999Farrar, Straus and Giroux · 96 pages · ENGISBN 9780374525934

Progressive awakenings occur in all these verses. Each sense is engaged, and there is a search for epiphanies of the spirit, too. We are in history but also in the present - in buildings, churches, homes, trains, and cars; then back in the open pursuing the course to Baltimore and Bucharest, to the zoo and the park, to the past and the future. The digressions are wily, heartbreaking, or vertiginous. The clock ticks on, yet the tactics of survival and enhancement set forth in these poems invoke an ideal permanence.

How it feels

When and where

Reading situationBedtime
How do you feel?