ENG 380Y Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Willem De Kooning, John Ashbery, David Lehman
13 Sep 2017
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John ashbery, frank ohara, kenneth koch, and james schuyler. Took their lead from the abstract expressionists: willem de kooning, jackson pollack, mark. Like painting, writing was properly understood to be an activity, a present-tense process, and the residue of that activity could not help referring to itself. All poetry was the product of a collab with language. While mimesis, the imitation of nature, remained a goal of art, the abstract painters had redefined the concept by enlarging the meaning of nature; i am nature, pollock said. This, too, was a liberty the poets could take. The poem is not only being a process but as being about the process of its creation. David lehman: in place of the high seriousness that engulfed the abstract expressionists, they opted for aesthetic pleasure. They favored wit, humor, and the advanced irony of the blague . The poets liked hoaxes, spoofs, parodies and strange juxtapositions, pseudotranslations and collages.
