Passive / Aggressive
Passive / Aggressive - meaning Summary
Fragmented Domestic Surrealism
John Ashbery's Passive / Aggressive strings together disjointed conversational fragments and absurd images to portray fractured interpersonal moments. The poem moves between mundane details, intrusive bodily references, and random narrative slips, producing a dreamlike, collaged flow. Rather than a clear plot, it evokes emotional disconnection, ironic commentary and the slip between casual speech and hostility. The result is a portrait of everyday life rendered unstable by associative leaps and tonal shifts.
Read Complete AnalysesWe were driving along at twenty-five miles an hour. “Desperate” wants to know how the angle tree has went. Or we now can live over a wombat factory, said the woman coming in to see him about something. And I was like, a beautiful little tree, or lake. Just the sandwiches now, we’ll look at the rest later when you’re out of time… Oh yeah? Oh, yeah. That’s it. The water has swirled away to a secret hiding place deep within earth. Timid thing out hitting the sun, get me some peas…You’re going tomorrow, ribald headache misjudged, gray drunkard. Lost vagrants unfold scrolls of pity. I don’t care how big his cock is, I’d…Oh, hullo, Marge. Shredded any cumulus yesterday? A sinister joy overtakes us. Everybody has a body, that’s why they’re called everybody. The affluent strapped to an accordion, just as crazy in Baltimore and Point Reyes. Something I don’t remember eating: the Mother Hubbard ship. You seemed to be going good down there. The very tegument strained, shuddering, causing it to wobble: more dribs than drabs, what summer is supposedly about, more fluid, even. He had spelling issues but most of all, loved the country, demented servitor, and what that person wants, and what that person wanted. What others said, as some went about their business, isn’t known. Growing along the ridge, the condition of his parade can’t know. Roger, sir, she meant it for only a little while. ROGER. And when the ducks came squawking back, you felt it was your responsibility. The floral canopy dragged reproachfully, or so it seemed. When lunch arrived you filled up on tea and goat cheese.
from Commotion of the Birds (2016)
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