July 4, 2026
Rhyme and Punishment
How to Enjoy John Ashbery
Poetry fans say Ashbery isn’t impossible — but the comments are having a full meltdown
TLDR: Joshua Corey tried to calm readers scared of John Ashbery by saying poetry doesn’t need to be solved like a test. The reaction quickly split between fans calling that freeing and skeptics joking it sounds like an excuse for poems that refuse to make sense.
A literary newsletter post about how to read John Ashbery without panicking somehow turned into the kind of culture clash readers live for. In his essay, Joshua Corey explains that his long-running book group — a crowd already brave enough for Joyce, Proust, and Pynchon — still gets nervous around poetry, especially Ashbery, the famously slippery poet often accused of being impossible to understand. Corey’s pitch is basically: relax, stop treating poems like exams, and enjoy the weirdness, the music, and the feeling of a mind thinking out loud.
And that’s exactly where the strongest reactions exploded. One camp cheered this as a much-needed rescue mission for intimidated readers, arguing that Ashbery clicks only when you stop demanding a neat message. The other side was less charitable, joking that “just vibe with it” is what people say when they can’t explain anything. The hottest disagreement? Whether difficult poetry is a thrilling invitation or an elaborate prank played by English majors.
The humor wrote itself. Readers compared Ashbery to modern art, jazz, and autocorrect having a spiritual awakening. Others joked that being told to embrace “uncertainty” before reading poetry felt like being handed directions that say, “simply get lost.” Still, even the skeptics seemed weirdly entertained. That may be the real win here: the post didn’t just defend Ashbery — it turned confusion itself into the main event.
Key Points
- •Joshua Corey has been leading a long-running Lake Forest book group for the past six months.
- •The group reads a mix of classic and contemporary literature and had previously read little poetry before Corey became facilitator.
- •Corey first introduced the group to poetry through John Berryman’s *77 Dream Songs* and says the group responded to it.
- •The group is now reading John Ashbery’s *Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror*, which Corey says some members find intimidating.
- •Corey argues that Ashbery’s poetry rewards readers through wit, imagery, insight, and an openness to uncertainty rather than fixed messages.