Quotation(s) of the Week: John Ashbery

Thanks to Sage Cohen, I have very recently discovered the Read Write Poem site. And thanks to that site, I have found not one, but SEVEN quotations from poet John Ashbery.

That's because the last time I looked, Read Write Poem was polling visitors to see "Which John Ashbery quote applies to you?" Here are the choices:

"My own autobiography has never interested me that much. Whenever I try to think about it, I seem to draw a complete blank."

"There wasn't enough space to paint but there was room to write, which is one of the advantages of being a writer."

"I mention this because getting published is very much a result of chance and connections and all kinds of factors that, in my case, didn't have anything to do with poetry."

"So I wrote for myself, not in a narcissistic way, but because I felt I was doomed to be my chief reader."

"I didn't think there were going to be any readers therefore I wasn't trying to annoy them."

"I am aware of the pejorative associations of the word 'escapist,' but I insist that we need all the escapism we can get and even that isn't going to be enough."

"In fact, I rarely discuss my poetry. I find it distasteful. I'd rather not know much about it myself."

Think about which quotation you might choose, and then head over to the site to see the poll's results, if you're curious!