John Ashbery (28 July 1927 / Rochester, New York)

''I could say it's the happiest period of my life.
It hasn't got much competition!''

''The things that were coming to be talked about
Have come and gone and are still remembered
As being recent. There is a grain of curiosity
At the base of some new thing, that unrolls
Its question mark like a new wave on the shore.''

''It has been played once more. I think you exist only
To tease me into doing it, on your level, and then you aren't there
Or have adopted a different attitude. And the poem
Has set me softly down beside you. The poem is you.''

''Though it seems improbable on the face of it
You must master the huge retards and have faith in the slow
Blossoming of haystacks, stairways, walls of convolvulus,
Until the moon can do no more. Exhausted,
You get out of bed. Your project is completed
Though the experiment is a mess.''

''And songs climb out of the flames of the near campfires,
Pale, pastel things exquisite in their frailness
With a note or two to indicate it isn't lost,
On them at least. The songs decorate our notion of the world
And mark its limits, like a frieze of soap-bubbles.''

''This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level.
Look at it talking to you.''

''The contest ends at midnight tonight
But you can submit again, and again.''

''The disquieting muses again: what are "leftovers"?''

''We are happy in our way of life.
It doesn't make much sense to others. We sit about,
Read, and are restless.''

''Like a canoe route across the great lake on whose shore
One is left trapped, grumbling not so much at bad luck as
Because only this one side of experience is ever revealed.
And that meant something.''