Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

John Ashbery's poem "As One Put Drunk Into the Packet-Boat" conjures a world of expectancy and uncertainty, a landscape where the abstract and the physical meld. It delves into the consciousness of an individual grappling with time, perception, and the anticipation of some unnamed event. This uncertainty is cleverly captured in the title itself, a title that implies an experience of disorientation and a lack of control over one's destiny.

The opening lines, "I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free," set the tone for the poem, striking a balance between hope and disillusionment. The speaker acknowledges a form of existential trial and error. Not everything we engage with has the weight of permanence and freedom; some choices and experiences are more ephemeral, confined to their moment.

The spatial metaphor of sitting "in a place where sunlight / Filters down, a little at a time," is powerfully evocative. This could be a metaphor for human life, often spent waiting-for events, for other people, for a kind of enlightenment. Meanwhile, time ages all; the Sun yellows the green of the maple tree, indicating both the passing of seasons and the inevitability of change.

The poem moves from a sense of stasis into one of hopeful renewal: "I felt the stirrings of new breath in the pages / Which all winter long had smelled like an old catalog." This line evokes the potential for change, for a new chapter. It is as if life, which seemed to be a stale catalog of mundane events, suddenly promises new narratives. But this revelation comes not in youth or early summer but when the summer is "well along," at a mature phase where experiences have already been accumulated.

There's an existential tone to the poem; the speaker questions the nature of perception and self-awareness: "A look of glass stops you / And you walk on shaken: was I the perceived?" This query casts the reader into a philosophical realm, probing whether the self exists independently of its perception by others.

The poem returns to images of children playing and clouds dissipating, which may be seen as metaphors for transience and change. These lines provide a counterpoint to the solemnity of the speaker's internal musings, introducing the idea that life continues outside of our anxieties and expectations.

The end of the poem alludes to some "great, formal affair" that seems to be on the cusp of beginning, yet it leaves us in a state of lingering anticipation. It's a complex, almost musical summation of the poem's themes: anticipation, the intertwining of the mundane and the extraordinary, and the ongoing negotiation between the self and the world.

In "As One Put Drunk Into the Packet-Boat," Ashbery masterfully tackles a myriad of themes-time, self-perception, and the anticipation of meaningful events-all within the framework of a seemingly simple landscape. The poem is a rich tapestry of emotion and intellect, confronting readers with questions that are as enduring as they are elusive. It encapsulates the complexity of being: a state of constant flux, perpetually caught between the has-been and the yet-to-be.

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