John Ashbery

Poems by John Ashbery

John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet and art critic.

Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery 'sounded, in poetry, the standard tones of the age.' Langdon Hammer, chair of the English Department at Yale University, wrote in 2008, 'No figure looms so large in American poetry over the past 50 years as John Ashbery' and 'No American poet has had a larger, more diverse vocabulary, not Whitman, not Pound.' Stephanie Burt, a poet and Harvard professor of English, has compared Ashbery to T. S. Eliot, calling Ashbery 'the last figure whom half the English-language poets alive thought a great model, and the other half thought incomprehensible'.

Ashbery published more than 20 volumes of poetry. Among other awards, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975). In 2007, he became the first living poet to be anthologized by the Library of America. Renowned for its postmodern complexity and opacity, his work still proves controversial. Ashbery said he wished his work to be accessible to as many people as possible, not a private dialogue with himself. He also joked that some critics still view him as 'a harebrained, homegrown surrealist whose poetry defies even the rules and logic of Surrealism.' He reflected: 'I’m not very good at explaining my work... I'm unable to do so because I feel that my poetry is the explanation. The explanation of what? Of my thought, whatever that is. As I see it, my thought is both poetry and the attempt to explain that poetry; the two cannot be disentangled.'

Poems

  • A Mood of Quiet Beauty Read Poem
  • Alcove Read Poem
  • Bells II Read Poem
  • Blueprints and Others Read Poem
  • Breezeway Read Poem
  • Bunch of Stuff Read Poem
  • Elective Infinities Read Poem
  • Hard Times Read Poem
  • Homeless Heart Read Poem
  • Honestly, Read Poem
  • Just Walking Around Read Poem
  • Meaningful Love Read Poem
  • Mottled Tuesday Read Poem
  • Poem at the New Year Read Poem
  • Postlude and Prequel Read Poem
  • Some Trees Read Poem
  • Soonest Mended Read Poem
  • Strange Things Happen at Night Read Poem
  • Syringa Read Poem
  • The History of My Life Read Poem
  • The New Higher Read Poem
  • This Economy Read Poem
  • This Room Read Poem
  • Uptick Read Poem
  • Words to That Effect Read Poem
  • Alms for the Beekeeper Read Poem
  • AndUt Pictura PoesisIs Her Name Read Poem
  • Anticipated Stranger, Read Poem
  • [A blue anchor grains of grit in a tall sky sewing] Read Poem
  • Boundary Issues Read Poem
  • The Bungalows Read Poem
  • ... by an Earthquake Read Poem
  • By Guess and by Gosh Read Poem
  • Chinese Whispers Read Poem
  • Crossroads in the Past Read Poem
  • Day Bump Read Poem
  • Dramedy Read Poem
  • El Dorado Read Poem
  • Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape Read Poem
  • Glazunoviana Read Poem
  • Hotel Lautréamont Read Poem
  • How to Continue Read Poem
  • If You Said You Would Come With Me Read Poem
  • The Instruction Manual Read Poem
  • Last Month Read Poem
  • Late Echo Read Poem
  • Late-ish Read Poem
  • Leave the Hand In Read Poem
  • Like a Sentence Read Poem
  • The Mauve Notebook Read Poem
  • Mean Particles Read Poem
  • My Erotic Double Read Poem
  • The One Thing That Can Save America Read Poem
  • The Painter Read Poem
  • Paradoxes and Oxymorons Read Poem
  • People Behaving Badly a Concern Read Poem
  • Pyrography Read Poem
  • Rivers and Mountains Read Poem
  • The Short Answer Read Poem
  • Sleepers Awake Read Poem
  • Street Musicians Read Poem
  • The Tennis Court Oath Read Poem
  • These Lacustrine Cities Read Poem
  • Vetiver Read Poem
  • A Worldly Country Read Poem
  • Bastille Read Poem
  • Coming and Going Read Poem
  • Elegy Read Poem
  • Genie Read Poem
  • Morning of Drunkenness Read Poem
  • Passing the Frontier Read Poem
  • Royalty Read Poem
  • To a Reason Read Poem
  • Town Hall, Fifteenth Arrondissement (tr. by John Ashbery) Read Poem
  • Wet Casements Read Poem