“Abstentions” by John Ashbery, is a poem that is about a newlywed couple on a honeymoon in Rome, Italy. Ashbery is showing the old, long lasting aspects of Rome’s beautiful but worn tourist attractions. He is also showing the brand new, perfect appearing couple on their honeymoon, and how, although they look new, they are already broken, which can be shown in line six with the quote, “Please tell me that you love me.” In the poem, “The old mines,” “The iron monuments,” and “The arches nailed to wood” resemble the long lasting relationship which can only be described by worn out, strong bonds.
The new couple on their honeymoon, however, looks new, wearing a “white suit” with a “white newspaper and apple,” but is cracked, with “nights the ruined homes” and “gold tears shed.” This is used to show that even new stuff is not always stronger than older things that has been through a lot. This was hard for me to see, as the poem jumps back and forth from talking about the monuments of Rome to the relationship between the couple. The talk about how “white” the couple is initially led me to believe that the couple was better than the “salty steps of Rome,” and it took me some time to realize that Ashbery was actually trying to highlight the strength of the old monuments and the weakness of the new couple. This confusion originally led me to believe that I did not like this poem, but I came to think that it was a good poem, showing that newer things, are not always as good as their older counterparts. Ashbery did a very good job of subtly showing the superiority of stronger yet older objects and relationships over the “white bricks” of the brand new relationship.
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Bryce ThompsonArchives
March 2017
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