Ashes to Ashes: A Memoir
by Jeff Kahrs
John Ash treasured his apartment in Istanbul, particularly the living room. Decorated a year or two before we first met in 2000, it centered around a red velvet couch with a painting by Stephanie Rose hanging above it that featured the swirling black outline of scrolls on a volute, along with broken columns. They were set against a dark crimson background. I seem to recall the walls were baby blue.
In the far corner near the window lay his overstuffed, gray velvet armchair with a light and side table. John always read in it when our Writer’s Group would meet, and it was here he could often be found drinking rakı when I visited in the afternoon. The work of other artists he knew and had championed in New York and also lived and visited Istanbul regularly, like Peter Hristoff and Mike Berg, also hung on his walls. If you entered the kitchen from the living room, a set of shelves on the left held both his CDs and player. His diverse musical tastes included the collected works of Burt Bacharach, Stravinsky, Elvis Costello, or Ulysses by Dallapiccola, and something was often playing when I visited.
Living was difficult for John but writing seemed effortless. I can’t say whether he hid his rewriting from others, but his manuscript pages only had a rare word scratched out. I suspect this was just part of his genius.
His work desk, tucked into a bay window in the kitchen made opaque by grime, was covered with his writing detritus. He spent hours paging through books of maps there. The desk also held his manuscripts when he was working on something. He had a distinctive spidery hand, each letter carefully printed on the yellow legal pads he preferred. His purposeful manner of inscribing paper took a bit of time; he seemed to use his script to pace his thoughts. He never learned to use a typewriter, so clear penmanship was very much a plus for whomever was tasked with typing his manuscript up.
His scattered books and papers obeyed his chaotic impulses, though it must be said that on a rare occasion he was very organized, particularly when he was orchestrating the poems in one of his books. He commented more than once that it was very important to order work in a book of poems according to their musical intonations.
It was in this space in Istanbul that John thrived for a number of years, throwing an occasional party or having someone over for dinner. He was an excellent host and cook, very attentive when guests visited, though these more formal visits decreased as John fell deeper into alcoholism.
In the far corner near the window lay his overstuffed, gray velvet armchair with a light and side table. John always read in it when our Writer’s Group would meet, and it was here he could often be found drinking rakı when I visited in the afternoon. The work of other artists he knew and had championed in New York and also lived and visited Istanbul regularly, like Peter Hristoff and Mike Berg, also hung on his walls. If you entered the kitchen from the living room, a set of shelves on the left held both his CDs and player. His diverse musical tastes included the collected works of Burt Bacharach, Stravinsky, Elvis Costello, or Ulysses by Dallapiccola, and something was often playing when I visited.
Living was difficult for John but writing seemed effortless. I can’t say whether he hid his rewriting from others, but his manuscript pages only had a rare word scratched out. I suspect this was just part of his genius.
His work desk, tucked into a bay window in the kitchen made opaque by grime, was covered with his writing detritus. He spent hours paging through books of maps there. The desk also held his manuscripts when he was working on something. He had a distinctive spidery hand, each letter carefully printed on the yellow legal pads he preferred. His purposeful manner of inscribing paper took a bit of time; he seemed to use his script to pace his thoughts. He never learned to use a typewriter, so clear penmanship was very much a plus for whomever was tasked with typing his manuscript up.
His scattered books and papers obeyed his chaotic impulses, though it must be said that on a rare occasion he was very organized, particularly when he was orchestrating the poems in one of his books. He commented more than once that it was very important to order work in a book of poems according to their musical intonations.
It was in this space in Istanbul that John thrived for a number of years, throwing an occasional party or having someone over for dinner. He was an excellent host and cook, very attentive when guests visited, though these more formal visits decreased as John fell deeper into alcoholism.
* * *
Was he a difficult person who drank too much, or did he become difficult because of the drinking? Only people who knew John when he was younger could answer this. The first time I met him in 2000, I was subjected to the sharp sting of his tongue. Stunned by the attack, I thought: Why is this man so vicious to me? What have I done to deserve this? I soon learned I had done nothing but exhibit some trait that John had taken a dislike to, and I was by no means the only person he'd lashed out at for what seemed no reason other than he wanted to inflict pain. Discovering he had respect for people who put up a fight, this is exactly what I did. When, during an argument, he threatened to brain me, I said, "I"d like to see you try." His threat was, of course, empty, as even by then we had developed a real affection each other.
I miss him.
I met John through a writer’s group founded by Mel Kenne. Some came and went, but the core was composed of Mel, John, Cliff Endres, James Wilde, Vincent Czyz, Scott Berry, and Bronwyn Mills. Sermin Meskill and Daniel Borzutzky were two memorable members for a time. Sidney Wade, Ed Foster and Christopher Sawyer Lauçanno were fellow travelers.
While John was in Istanbul, he arranged for John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch to speak at the Yapı Kredi Cultural Center. Michael Palmer also read there at one point. Our dinners included guests like Jerome Rothenburg, Murat-Nemet Nejat and others I’ve forgotten. If we were a school it was only because most of us had an abiding interest in places soaked in history. There was also a post-modernist here and there though they chose to remain outside our group.
After most every meeting of our Writer’s Group, we would go out for a late dinner at a local restaurant. John loved handsome waiters, especially those who had a “Roman” look or the famous Pontic nose.
Uğur from the Black Sea was his favorite. He would follow Uğur as he moved for work from restaurant to restaurant. In the words of John’s friend Layla, “His whole demeanor would change when he saw him–the way he tilted his head to one side, shooting a sideways glance or two, grinning coquettishly and shyly, sheepish almost…. John loved the waiters who made him feel at home; in fact, they were part of both his physical and emotional landscape.”
I miss him.
I met John through a writer’s group founded by Mel Kenne. Some came and went, but the core was composed of Mel, John, Cliff Endres, James Wilde, Vincent Czyz, Scott Berry, and Bronwyn Mills. Sermin Meskill and Daniel Borzutzky were two memorable members for a time. Sidney Wade, Ed Foster and Christopher Sawyer Lauçanno were fellow travelers.
While John was in Istanbul, he arranged for John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch to speak at the Yapı Kredi Cultural Center. Michael Palmer also read there at one point. Our dinners included guests like Jerome Rothenburg, Murat-Nemet Nejat and others I’ve forgotten. If we were a school it was only because most of us had an abiding interest in places soaked in history. There was also a post-modernist here and there though they chose to remain outside our group.
After most every meeting of our Writer’s Group, we would go out for a late dinner at a local restaurant. John loved handsome waiters, especially those who had a “Roman” look or the famous Pontic nose.
Uğur from the Black Sea was his favorite. He would follow Uğur as he moved for work from restaurant to restaurant. In the words of John’s friend Layla, “His whole demeanor would change when he saw him–the way he tilted his head to one side, shooting a sideways glance or two, grinning coquettishly and shyly, sheepish almost…. John loved the waiters who made him feel at home; in fact, they were part of both his physical and emotional landscape.”
* * *
For many years I joked with friends that John was the most difficult man in the world, that if he saw a hand trying to feed him, he would instinctively bite it. Right around the turn of the century, John received an incredible offer from Yapı Kredi, a Turkish bank that still publishes the most prestigious literature in Turkey through its cultural center. They honored him with a stipend of around $4000 a month—at least that’s what I heard it was—which for Turkey was a fantastic amount of money. He received the cash for a few years until there was a conflict between John’s publisher in England and his patron, Selçuk Altın. The relationship came to an end, but not before they published his collected poems and a fantastic edition of his book The Anatolikon, illustrated by Peter Hristoff. Yapi Kredi also put out John’s The Other Guide: Western and Southern Anatolia, which, much to John’s chagrin, had tons of photos but no maps and was missing 40 pages, and it was this volume that caused the row in the first place. It is nonetheless fantastic travel writing. I like to believe Gertrude Bell and Freya Stark, John’s travel-writing heroes, looked on his project with approval. He was a devout believer in travel writing that has style and opinions rather than the generic, washed-out quality of many guidebooks.
But then who was John without invective or opinions? I was mystified as to why he took such a dislike to icons, the images of which are so central to the Byzantine mosaics and frescos he adored. His vitriolic against Stockhausen and Boulez and the experimental sound coming out of IRCAM in Paris was more understandable as John believed that the lyrical and conceptual needed to be integrated. What did the osssilation of “pure” sound have to do with human sentiment? As modern and post-modern as John’s writing is, he believe stripping art down to its theoretical basis was not only inhumane but no fun at all. Is it any wonder he fell in with poets from the New York School and loved abstract expressionists like Mark Rothko, though he continually championed the too often ignored women like Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler and Lee Krasner.
His preference for more abstract or symbolic work (such as Peter Hristoff’s) stood on contrast to his dislike of portraiture. He detested Francis Bacon and never mentioned Lucian Freud once. As might be expected, he was no great fan of having his photo taken and deeply disliked the portrait Stephanie Rose painted of him. I never figured this one out.
His sense of humor about his diatribes was a saving grace. If he was spouting off I would say, “Oh John, get off the fence.” Realizing he was returning to one of his favorite saws, John would started saying it along with me, and as the invective finished up he would often begin giggling. Though the "Maledictions" from The Parthian Stations excoriated individuals he’d had run-ins with, John’s work is also filled with deep affection for friends. Because he could be so cutting, it’s easy to forget he had a deep love for a good many people. And he could be well behaved if he wished, for he was always a charming guest when he came over for dinner and held a particular affection for our cat Bob, whose name he would pronounce like a foghorn.
But then who was John without invective or opinions? I was mystified as to why he took such a dislike to icons, the images of which are so central to the Byzantine mosaics and frescos he adored. His vitriolic against Stockhausen and Boulez and the experimental sound coming out of IRCAM in Paris was more understandable as John believed that the lyrical and conceptual needed to be integrated. What did the osssilation of “pure” sound have to do with human sentiment? As modern and post-modern as John’s writing is, he believe stripping art down to its theoretical basis was not only inhumane but no fun at all. Is it any wonder he fell in with poets from the New York School and loved abstract expressionists like Mark Rothko, though he continually championed the too often ignored women like Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler and Lee Krasner.
His preference for more abstract or symbolic work (such as Peter Hristoff’s) stood on contrast to his dislike of portraiture. He detested Francis Bacon and never mentioned Lucian Freud once. As might be expected, he was no great fan of having his photo taken and deeply disliked the portrait Stephanie Rose painted of him. I never figured this one out.
His sense of humor about his diatribes was a saving grace. If he was spouting off I would say, “Oh John, get off the fence.” Realizing he was returning to one of his favorite saws, John would started saying it along with me, and as the invective finished up he would often begin giggling. Though the "Maledictions" from The Parthian Stations excoriated individuals he’d had run-ins with, John’s work is also filled with deep affection for friends. Because he could be so cutting, it’s easy to forget he had a deep love for a good many people. And he could be well behaved if he wished, for he was always a charming guest when he came over for dinner and held a particular affection for our cat Bob, whose name he would pronounce like a foghorn.
* * *
John fulfilled a childhood dream in becoming a travel writer. By the time I’d met him, he’d become well-known among English-language speakers in Istanbul for Byzantine Journey and was doing a few travel features a year for the New York Times, which he read aloud several times to our group. I never felt anyone had much effect on John’s writing, but by reading it out loud he would discover places he wanted to make changes.
Of course, he had insightful commentary for us all when moved to speak.
He very much enjoyed telling stories about his discovery of an Armenian monastery near Van being used as a barn or Antioch’s Iron Gate. He didn’t really discover these places, of course, but working his way up some rut worn by sheep to stand under masonry with no one else but perhaps a guide gave him more joy than anything else in the world. He used to spend hours paging through books of maps, knowing they were merely the demarcation zones of vanished civilizations into which he might breathe life through inspired prose.
His last travel dream was to write a book, inspired by Arshile Gorky, about Northeastern Turkey. He once told me he pulled out a book of Gorky’s paintings and showed it to one of his Kurdish guides, pointing to the yellow that Gorky used. The guide said, "Indeed, this yellow is the same color as our summer." This excited John to no end.
The title of the book was to be The Dervish in the Trees, which was taken from a Gorky painting: “The Sun, the Dervish in the Trees.” I recall this because it was one of the things John mentioned when I last spoke to him about his travel writing. John was no dervish, but it’s a delightful image and not hard to imagine how overjoyed he would have been to be sitting in a tree in a Persian miniature.
Being a member of our writing group pushed John past his alcoholism to produce poetry: To the City (2004), Parthian Stations (2007), and In the Wake of the Day (2010) came out of this fertile period. He was the doyen of small, vibrant scene during those exciting years in Istanbul. What with religious freedom blooming along with the freedom to speak, to drink, a booming economy, and people visiting from all over the world, the place we loved was being illuminated and we were dancing in the limelight.
Unfortunately, toward the end of my stay in Istanbul, John was suffering from terrible eczema, and he seemed to eat very little. My wife, Şirin, who is a medical doctor by training, said it was evidence of kidney failure. If so, it’s remarkable that John managed to almost survive another 10 years. . At one point in 2010 an old boyfriend with whom he worked on a number of translations from Chinese came to visit. John’s old flame was gone in an hour or two, and John didn’t seem to care. Such things were no longer worth the fight.
Of course, he had insightful commentary for us all when moved to speak.
He very much enjoyed telling stories about his discovery of an Armenian monastery near Van being used as a barn or Antioch’s Iron Gate. He didn’t really discover these places, of course, but working his way up some rut worn by sheep to stand under masonry with no one else but perhaps a guide gave him more joy than anything else in the world. He used to spend hours paging through books of maps, knowing they were merely the demarcation zones of vanished civilizations into which he might breathe life through inspired prose.
His last travel dream was to write a book, inspired by Arshile Gorky, about Northeastern Turkey. He once told me he pulled out a book of Gorky’s paintings and showed it to one of his Kurdish guides, pointing to the yellow that Gorky used. The guide said, "Indeed, this yellow is the same color as our summer." This excited John to no end.
The title of the book was to be The Dervish in the Trees, which was taken from a Gorky painting: “The Sun, the Dervish in the Trees.” I recall this because it was one of the things John mentioned when I last spoke to him about his travel writing. John was no dervish, but it’s a delightful image and not hard to imagine how overjoyed he would have been to be sitting in a tree in a Persian miniature.
Being a member of our writing group pushed John past his alcoholism to produce poetry: To the City (2004), Parthian Stations (2007), and In the Wake of the Day (2010) came out of this fertile period. He was the doyen of small, vibrant scene during those exciting years in Istanbul. What with religious freedom blooming along with the freedom to speak, to drink, a booming economy, and people visiting from all over the world, the place we loved was being illuminated and we were dancing in the limelight.
Unfortunately, toward the end of my stay in Istanbul, John was suffering from terrible eczema, and he seemed to eat very little. My wife, Şirin, who is a medical doctor by training, said it was evidence of kidney failure. If so, it’s remarkable that John managed to almost survive another 10 years. . At one point in 2010 an old boyfriend with whom he worked on a number of translations from Chinese came to visit. John’s old flame was gone in an hour or two, and John didn’t seem to care. Such things were no longer worth the fight.
* * *
Şirin knew someone from her first marriage with strong connections to the government who warned us in 2009 to leave the country. Turkey is beautiful and it can overwhelm you with its hospitality, but it can also suffocate you with greed and cruelty. In 2011 we relocated to Seattle, which I consider my hometown in the States. I had lived in Istanbul for 18 years.
I think it was in 2015 that Hugh Pope, author of the best-selling Turkey Unveiled, collected John and poured him onto a plane to the U.K. Somehow John survived a number of operations and even began writing again. In a letter I received from him not long before he died was filled with the joy of listening to Beethoven’s opus 131, or Brahms and his 4th Symphony, which he said, “comes as manna from heaven”. He was also about to receive a sizable grant from the British government. His thoughtful and grounded prose felt like he was really pulling himself together. Alas, it was not to be.
Though I respect his family’s decision to bury him in Manchester, I’m sorry he’s not in the Crimean Cemetery in Istanbul. John spoke of Manchester and the damp cold in one breath. Of course, it can get plenty cold in Istanbul when the arctic karayel blows from the north. And he advised me in one of his last letters not to be “too nostalgic about Istanbul. In some ways it’s a bitch of a city.” True that. But it was also the home we loved so well and so much. I remain convinced that in John’s imagination it was always warmer in The City.
I think it was in 2015 that Hugh Pope, author of the best-selling Turkey Unveiled, collected John and poured him onto a plane to the U.K. Somehow John survived a number of operations and even began writing again. In a letter I received from him not long before he died was filled with the joy of listening to Beethoven’s opus 131, or Brahms and his 4th Symphony, which he said, “comes as manna from heaven”. He was also about to receive a sizable grant from the British government. His thoughtful and grounded prose felt like he was really pulling himself together. Alas, it was not to be.
Though I respect his family’s decision to bury him in Manchester, I’m sorry he’s not in the Crimean Cemetery in Istanbul. John spoke of Manchester and the damp cold in one breath. Of course, it can get plenty cold in Istanbul when the arctic karayel blows from the north. And he advised me in one of his last letters not to be “too nostalgic about Istanbul. In some ways it’s a bitch of a city.” True that. But it was also the home we loved so well and so much. I remain convinced that in John’s imagination it was always warmer in The City.