John Ashbery’s poem “A Worldly Country” (links below) initially ran in the November 7th, 2005, issue of the New Yorker, and this week it’s the subject of the magazine’s poetry podcast with the host (and poetry editor) Kevin Young and his guest, the poet April Bernard. She chose the Ashbery to read and talk about, noting “I love the way that he’s so hard to understand but when you’re in the middle of his poem, it makes perfect sense—even if you couldn’t possibly paraphrase it to anyone else.” She and Young also liken this poem and other Ashbery works to collage. The rhyming couplets provide footholds for us readers if we don’t know quite where we are.
I really appreciate that approach to poetry that might seem difficult at first. To be kind of simple about it, just jump in. That’s what I did and took pleasure in all the crazy images whirling by. And there’s more to it, of course. Even though it was published more than twenty years ago, “A Worldly Country” is timely; Bernard says it talks about “how the chaos in the outer world comes into the inner world.”
After the Ashbery discussion, Bernard reads her poem “Beagle or Something” (April 23, 2007, issue) and among other topics, talks about the role of play in poetry. I laughed when she told Young that she made up several composers’ names and titles of works in Romanticism, the book the poem appears in. I didn’t know Bernard’s poetry before the podcast; Romanticism is now on the list for my library errands tomorrow.
Links:
New Yorker Poetry Podcast with Kevin Young and April Bernard
“A Worldly Country” at the Poetry Foundation. Available to read for free.
“A Worldly Country” at the New Yorker. Subscription needed.
PennSound recording of Ashbery himself reading a shorter version of “A Worldly Country” at the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, NYC, May 14, 2009. MP3 audio. Available to listen to for free.
Sound files of many Ashbery readings, at PennSound. Available to listen to for free.
“Beagle or Something” and “Beagle o algo así,” a translation into Spanish by Sergio Eduardo Cruz, at Circulo de Poesía. Available to read for free.
“Beagle or Something” at the New Yorker. Subscription needed.
Romanticism, by April Bernard (W.W. Norton)
The Poetry Friday roundup for January 30th is at the Poem Farm, the home of poet Amy Ludwig VanDerwater.
Photo by Susan Thomsen, Arno River, Florence, Italy, 2026.
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