Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

John Ashbery's "The New Higher" is a complex tapestry of emotions and elusive moments, thematically concentrating on the intricate relationship between presence and absence, understanding and confusion. The poem begins with a line that could be interpreted as a declaration of profound love or attachment: "You meant more than life to me." But this powerful statement is immediately complicated by the speaker's admission: "I lived through/you not knowing, not knowing I was living." This duality-the intense significance of the "other" and the speaker's unawareness-creates a tension that pervades the poem.

The narrative seems to recount a visit, a journey to meet the other person. When the speaker arrives "up a stair," he finds "no one there." This absence destabilizes the environment, even upsetting "a chair." The physical setting becomes an echo chamber for the emotional and existential emptiness the speaker feels: "where/we had been there was nothing there, nothing that is anywhere." This line encapsulates the central paradox of the poem: the places and times of their togetherness become sites of absence, both physical and emotional.

The couple's meetings are described as "oblique," as if each were merely a shadow passing through the other's life. They leave "no stare," implying a kind of mutual emotional negligence or perhaps a mutual inability to penetrate the other's core being. When "the sun was done muttering," marking the end of the day or possibly the end of an era, they decide to leave "that there." This phrase captures the essence of the poem-the ambiguous, indefinable quality of experience that is never fully grasped but is always left behind.

As the poem progresses, the focus shifts from "there" to "now," and from the physical to the temporal. Time itself becomes a character in the narrative, barging "in the window" and leaving only a small amount of itself behind. The speaker's response to this limitation is both surprising and poignant. He "laughs" and covers the eyes of the other, asking, "Can you see now?" This moment captures the tragicomic essence of human relationships-our efforts to understand and be understood are simultaneously earnest and futile.

In the concluding lines, the speaker finds himself "only in the where/where the blossoming stream takes off, under your window." Here, the poem reaches a point of quiet clarity: love or attachment exists in these transient moments, these "wheres" that we can neither define nor hold onto. Finally, the speaker admits his love for the other's "window," which serves as a symbol for the threshold between understanding and mystery, presence and absence.

Ashbery's "The New Higher" unfolds as a nuanced exploration of existential uncertainty, highlighting the limitations and complexities of human connection. It leaves us with an unsettling yet deeply resonant message: our understandings of love, presence, and reality are always constrained by the elusive nature of experience itself.

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