The Problem of Anxiety
The Problem of Anxiety - form Summary
Associative Conversational Free Verse
John Ashbery's poem uses loose, conversational free verse that lets images and anecdotes slide into one another. The form's associative, fragmentary flow mirrors the speaker's evasive, anxious mind: small domestic details (a chicken sandwich, a glass eye) interrupt larger claims about time and identity. By avoiding a formal argument or confession, the poem creates a tone of wry detachment and unresolved tension, so meaning accumulates through juxtaposition rather than explicit statement.
Read Complete AnalysesFifty years have passed since I started living in those dark towns I was telling you about. Well, not much has changed. I still can't figure out how to get from the post office to the swings in the park. Apple trees blossom in the cold, not from conviction, and my hair is the color of dandelion fluff. Suppose this poem were about you - would you put in the things I've carefully left out: descriptions of pain, and sex, and how shiftily people behave toward each other? Naw, that's all in some book it seems. For you I've saved the descriptions of chicken sandwiches, and the glass eye that stares at me in amazement from the bronze mantel, and will never be appeased.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.