Chinese Whispers

You turn to your neighbour and cup your hand and say into his ear what you've heard.

He does the same to a girl on his right. With each repetition the message gets a little further from the original intention.

But as the intention recedes, the whispered phrases approach what they intend themselves.

A poem, for instance, may start as a poet's statement.

But a poem is less and more than an initial statement.

It may start from a poet, but it doesn't finally belong to the poet.

John Ashbery's new collection includes sixty-five poems.

In each, a verbal nucleus, the original incitement to commit poetry, undergoes twists and modulations and arrives at a final, altered, form.

The changes come about because the train of ideas proliferate, departing from the platform of a word or phrase.

Each poem is a veritable Gard du Nord.