John Ashbery

The Anxious Music

playful

The Anxious Music - meaning Summary

Awkward Social Intimacy

Short, conversational poem sketches a crowded social scene where affection and sarcasm coexist. The speaker addresses friends with playful insults while registering uneasy appraisal and rivalry. Domestic, slightly surreal images—cars, birthdays, singing—interrupt the small talk, suggesting private anxieties beneath the polite surface. The tone slips between sweetness and reproach, making the poem a quick study of awkward intimacy and performative friendship.

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Everybody and his boyfriend was there. It doesn’t get much sweeter than this, O churlish BFF. “Dink,” I said, “This was something they kept appraising.” No snow in just anyone’s car. Though too much literature is a bad thing, you have to live with that. You sing really good (as if he’d ever be enough for his birthday)!

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