At North Farm
# At North Farm

"At North Farm" is a poem by American poet and writer John Ashbery.

## History and writing

The poem first appeared in The New Yorker in 1984. It was the opening poem of Ashbery's 1984 collection A Wave. It was written soon after Ashbery almost died due to an infection.

The poem is in part a reference to the epic poem Kalevala, which Ashbery revisited in his later poem "Finnish Rhapsody".

## Content

### Composition

The poem loosely adheres to the form of a sonnet, with the traditional fourteen lines and the octet/seste of a Petrarchan sonnet. Adhering to the format was not intentional on Ashbery's part.

### Themes

In her review of A Wave, Helen Vendler wrote that the poem deals with the pains of aging using clichés.

### Allusions and influences

The poem is evocative of W. H. Auden's work. Auden had an influence on Ashbery early poetry, an influence that diminished over the course of his career.

## Reception

Although shorter and simpler than many of his most famous works, it is considered to be a well-known poem of Ashbery's.

