John Ashbery: 'Fear among the legs of a chair…'

The Bonus Round

Mitch Sisskind Jul4 14, 1789

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'Good morning, class. In John Ashbery's poem
'Entitled The Skaters how can we understand
His line 'fear among the legs of a chair?'
'Well under the chair there's a frightened cat.'
‘Yes, that's exactly correct. Thank you, Lump.'
'So why doesn't he just come out and say it?
‘It's like when he says the wonder of the day
'When the child discovers her first dead hand.
'He spent so long leading up to that and
'We're all supposed to go ooo ahh except
'He's just been beating around the bush.
'In another one he goes signed the dwarf
'But he didn't tell us there was a dwarf
'So the dwarf just suddenly materializes.'