–According to whom? He can’t even rhyme decently when he tries. Little skill, big vocabulary, small mind. O’Hara’s much better; it’s as if Ashbery became the “academic” O’Hara. Ashbery says nothing rather well for a time, but the investment proves pointless, as the tantalizing appearance of meaningful substance nearly always steps back from itself. He dances with himself.

I’m familiar with the scene to which you’re referring. Yes, I do believe it was a form of special effects. Are you suggesting that it seems like a waste to employ special effects to recreate feces, when real feces is perfectly available and more directly affecting to the actors involved?

I’m glad you’re brave enough to step forward and defend Ashbery, though I find your rambling, unanchored, allegoric “recipe” a bit too mimetic of Ashbery’s own methods to be palatable.

I love a good metaphor, and I hence I welcome your insightful critique. You’re correct that my metahpor lacks precision and implies something quite strange. However, I must defend the image of droppings in relation to Ashbery’s process of assimilating experience and producing non-contextual “clumps” which he refers to as “poems.” If I must lose anything, the image of the garbage heap will be first to go.