Beats vs. NY School

The poem from the Beats period which particularly interested me the most was Gregory Corso's "Marriage." I think the poem was a bit long, but the lines ran together as if the writer was telling a story about a man contemplating the thought of marriage. It was very interesting and the I was able to completely understand it by reading through the poem once. The first three lines of the poem grabbed my attention and from the beginning I was intrigued. Being a married woman, I think I was easily drawn to the poem because of the first stanza.

Should I get married? Should I be good?
Astound the girl next door with my velvet suit and faustus hood?
Don't take her to movies but to cemeteries
tell all about werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets
then desire her and kiss her and all the preliminaries
and she going just so far and I understanding why
not getting angry saying You must feel! It's beautiful to feel!
Instead take her in my arms lean against an old crooked tombstone
and woo her the entire night the constellations in the sky-

It was as if the writer was insisting that getting married means you are doing the right thing and being good. I particularly enjoyed the first line because it made me want to read the answer to the mentioned question. The lines of the first stanza and throughout the poem ran together smoothly mostly because they were not divided by commas as most lines are. To the reader it was a continuous line or story.

The poem that intrigued me the most from the New York School Poets selection was John Ashbery's "Paradoxes and Oxymorons." What drew me to this poem was the first stanza just like Corso's poem "Marriage." The first stanza of Ashbery's poem spoke of the poem and it was a very interesting way of drawing the reader.

This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level.
Look at it talking to you. You look out a window.
Or pretend to fidget. You have it but you don't have it.
You miss it, it misses you. You miss each other.

Ashbery lets the reader know what he or she is about to read within the first line of his poetry. I thought this was an interesting way of catching the readers attention by getting straight to the point. Corso's poem was similar to this by drawing the readers attention by asking a question. The question was not directed towards the reader but it was still able to catch the attention of the reader because he/she wants to find the overall answer to the proposed question. I think Ashbery and Corso were both very experienced by using a strong first stanza to grab the readers attention and follow through with the remainder of the poem. I enjoyed both poems particularly because they were easy to understand and used "plain" language to convey their thoughts. Plain language is best understood, in my opinion, because I can easily interpret the writing.