“I’m going to borrow two, three lines from John Ashbery, the poet,” said Siah Armajani on September 9, 1988, in a public dialogue with Walker director Martin Friedman about the just-opened pedestrian bridge he designed for the grand opening of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. “Poetry makes things less didactic and makes it less dogmatic,” he continued, to laughter. “There’s a generosity in poetry that you can contradict yourself on. And also it’s an open-ended proposition, so there’s a way out.”

Two years later, nearly to the day, it was his friend, John Ashbery, who was on the Walker stage, reading a commissioned poem he wrote, at the sculptor’s insistence, on the Armanaji-designed Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge. Over the years, Walker staff have joked that the untitled work is the longest poem in the world: its metal letters extend over 16 lanes of traffic, covering a length of 375 feet.

On the occasion of Ashbery’s passing on September 3, at age 90, we share audio, courtesy the Walker Library and Archives, of Ashbery reading his site-specific meditation on movement, place, and order.

John Ashbery reads his untitled “bridge poem,” September 11, 1990:



https://s3.amazonaws.com/wac-imgix/cms/1990_09_11_John_Ashbery.mp3