John Ashbery

Glazunoviana

death free verse dreamlike

Glazunoviana - meaning Summary

Shifting Images and Abrupt Endings

Ashbery's 'Glazunoviana' strings together surreal, dreamlike images — a red-hatted man, a polar bear, a window opening onto shade — to evoke a drifting, unsettled scene. The second stanza abruptly darkens: the bear dies, populations move north, birds thicken and disaster looms. The poem juxtaposes whimsy and menace, converting collage-like detail into a mood of dislocation, sudden collapse, and unresolved ecological or psychic threat.

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The man with the red hat And the polar bear, is he here too? The window giving on shade, Is that here too? And all the little helps, My initials in the sky, The hay of an arctic summer night? The bear Drops dead in sight of the window. Lovely tribes have just moved to the north. In the flickering evening the martins grow denser. Rivers of wings surround us and vast tribulation.

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