Invisible Listeners
Lyric Intimacy in Herbert, Whitman, and Ashbery
Introduction
INVISIBLE LISTENERS
The chapters of this book investigate the odd practice by which certain
poets address their poems, in whole or in part, to someone they do not
know and cannot set eyes on, their invisible listener. George Herbert
speaks to God; Walt Whitman to the reader in futurity; John Ashbery to a
painter of the past. What are we to make of this choice of addressee? With
many visible listeners presumably available-the beloved, the patron, the
child, the friend-why does the poet feel he or she must hold a colloquy
with an invisible other? And what is the ethical import of speaking to
such a nonexistent being? To think about such a choice, we must look first
at the more common sorts of address within the lyric.
In its usual form, the lyric offers us the representation of a single
voice, alone, recording and analyzing and formulating and changing its
mind. Although no one else is present in fact, the solitary poet is
frequently addressing someone else, someone not in the room. It ... read full excerpt from Invisible Listeners: Lyric Intimacy in Herbert, Whitman, and Ashbery ebook
