World's Largest Glass of Water by John Ashbery
PN Review 191, January - February 2010
World’s Largest Glass of Water
Bunny and Squirrel couldn’t believe
who it was they came after! No sun
at the orphanage, no proctors
in the veiled classroom. It wasn’t
going to be like this at first. Somebody
must have flicked the wrong switch.
Now it was even later after that.
Trees in bloom ten years ago
added to the commotion. Along the roads
leading out of town, old people
bobbed and turned, as though stuck
in wet cement. Loafers turned up
on cue. Interestingly there was little
to comment on, as though the big newspaper
had blown through, scouring everything
in its dull path. I don’t want to wait
for this month to come, Squirrel said.
The fountain is an underwater phoenix.
The harpsichord went all adventurous
just as I was taking in the laundry.
We’d been promised extra pinnacles
since April, but this is tragic.
I know I only came to be here a second,
then leave to send you more postcards
and letters. Run along, like a good thing.
Powder the axles, wish the dog happy birthday.
There’s no time like a fuzzy present, she shared.
John Ashbery
PN Review’s 50th Birthday Party at London Review Bookshop
A note from Michael Schmidt…
‘The party was a wonderful way to round out the PN Review Jubilee! I want to thank my Carcanet colleagues for their inspired efforts all year on this, our second Jubilee in three years (after Carcanet’s), and our first post Covid. I also want to thank our evening’s hostess and Carcanet’s anchor for four decades, Kate Gavron, for being the best, most patient and forgiving Boss in the world. Thanks to all of those who attended the evening, so many poets, friends, familiar faces. We also received dozens of messages of good will from around the globe from PNR folk who couldn’t make it in person but were there in spirit. The cake was a classic, the LRB Bookshop as always a most congenial venue, its poetry buyer John Clegg embodying the festive spirit. I wish we had been able to record and share the sound of the party, so loud and cheerful it was, like a chorus of exotic birds. Among the voices were the past and the new Professors of Poetry at Oxford, a poet laureate, and a brilliant spread of writers new and old, old and new. Thank you from the bottom of PN Review’s heart. We are now into our 51st year and planning another party for 2073. Make a note in your diaries!’
(Pictured below: Photo 1 - L-R: Michael Schmidt, Mimi Khalvati and Simon Armitage. Photo 2 - Lady Kate Gavron)
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