John Ashbery’s “The Instruction Manual” presents a deceptively simple narrative of imaginative escape. On a closer examination it reveals a complex interplay of reality, fantasy, and the artistic process itself. As with much of Ashbery’s work, we are confronted with a surface of apparent banality – the tedium of composing an instruction manual – which serves as a springboard for a deeper exploration of consciousness.

The poem’s central tension resides in the juxtaposition of the mundane and the exotic. The speaker, burdened by the pragmatic demands of his task, retreats into a vividly imagined journey to Guadalajara. This act of mental displacement is not merely escapism, however. It becomes a performance of creativity, a construction of an alternate reality within the confines of the speaker’s own mind. The detailed, albeit somewhat clichéd, descriptions of Guadalajara – the “scent of jasmine,” the “bright wares” of the market – point to the inherent tension between originality and the inherited lexicon of romantic imagery. Ashbery, with characteristic self-awareness, acknowledges this tension, prompting us to consider the very nature of representation itself.

The poem’s structure underscores this interplay. The free verse form mirrors the fluidity of thought, the meandering path of the speaker’s internal journey. Just as the speaker drifts between the reality of his task and the fantasy of Guadalajara, so too does the poem navigate the liminal space between the concrete and the abstract. This blurring of boundaries is central to Ashbery’s poetics. He invites us to question the solidity of perceived reality, suggesting that the imagined world holds as much weight, as much potential for meaning, as the tangible world.

Also, “The Instruction Manual” can be interpreted as a metapoetic commentary on the creative act. The speaker, like the poet, constructs a world through language. The instruction manual, intended to guide and explain, becomes the catalyst for a different kind of instruction – an instruction in the art of imagination. The act of writing about Guadalajara becomes an act of creation in itself, mirroring Ashbery’s own process of composing the poem.

There is rather abrupt ending. This return to the reality of the instruction manual, serves not as a dismissal of the imaginative journey but as an affirmation of its power. The fantasy, though fleeting, leaves its mark. It has provided a momentary respite, a glimpse into the boundless possibilities of the human mind. And ultimately, this, I believe, is the enduring resonance of Ashbery’s work: the recognition that even within the constraints of the everyday, our imagination has a capacity to transform, to transcend, and also to create.