The Picture of Pasternak in a Prospect of Flowers

Boris beside the Baltic at Merekule, Leonid Pasternak, 1910

Boris Pasternak, whom no one yet knew . . . had this to say about poetry: “It will always be in the grass, it will always be necessary to bend over to see it, it will always be too simple to be discussed in assemblies.”

—Gisèle Freund

I’ve been following a trail of pebbles and crumbs. As I’ve arrived at no particular destination, and arrival anywhere certain is unlikely, I’m making a record of the journey so far.

Hansel & Gretel, Carl Offterdinger

My journey began with a book by the British poet David Herd, John Ashbery and American Poetry. Herd’s way of approaching Ashbery is intriguing, quite unlike anything else I’ve read. Among other things, he spends a good bit of the book tracing Ashbery’s influences and inspirations. I didn’t agree with—or understand—everything Herd wrote, but his observations forged stimulating associations and connections that seemed very much in the spirit of Ashbery’s poems.

A Cubist Glimpse

Juan Gris, The Fruit Bowl

I love Reverdy for saying yes, though I don’t believe it.
—Frank O’Hara

The poet Pierre Reverdy is reputed to have said, “From 1910 to 1914 I learned the cubist lesson.” I’ve yet to find out what lesson he felt he learned, but he certainly spent a lot of time among Cubist painters. Each of the poems in his collection Au Soleil du plafond refers to a still life by Juan Gris, one of which, Compotier (The Fruit Bowl), is on display in the current exhibition of Cubist works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.