John Ashbery's Blueprint for a Crooked House

In Twentieth-Century American Poetics, "The Invisible Avant-Garde" by John Ashbery:

Therefore it is a question of distinguishing bad traditional art and bad avant-garde art from good traditional art and good avant-garde art. But after one has done this, one still has a problem with good traditional art. One can assume good avant-garde art will go on living because the mere fact of its having been able to struggle into life at all will keep it alive. The doubt remains. But good traditional art may disappear at any moment when the tradition founders. It is a perilous business.

This argument of course is based on this assumption: a struggle into life will keep one alive. If only.

The other more subtle assumption: good traditional art may disappear at any moment when the tradition founders. More than art will disappear when all traditions founder.

I respect Ashbery’s poetry, but not this particular argument. He should have stopped here: distinguishing bad art from good art. I disagree with any fundamentalist, be they traditional or avant-garde. I’ve never seen a roof stand without a foundation underpinning it. And I’ve never seen a foundation serve a purpose by itself.

Some are roofers. Some are masons. My father was a carpenter.