John Ashbery Summary

If one word had to be used to describe John Ashbery's poetry, it would have to be that it is difficult--difficult to read, difficult to understand, and sometimes difficult to like. His admirers and de... Read more

In the following essay, Zweig commends Ashbery's use of hermetic language. I read each new book by John Ashbery with the same puzzlement and fascination. Ashbery's finely tuned style ... Read more

In the following essay, Norton analyzes Ashbery's verse in relationship to the major modes of linguistic theory and philosophy, in particular contemporary gay theory. The meaning of a word ... Read more

In the following essay, Kalstone traces the thematic and stylistic development of Ashbery's verse. In 1972 John Ashbery was invited to read at Shiraz, in Iran, where for several years the Em... Read more

In the following positive review, Yeaton praises linguistic aspects of "Litany." Imagine, a sixty-five page poem written in two columns to be read simultaneously. That means you can&#... Read more

In the following essay, Costello explores the relationship between author and reader in Ashbery's verse. "My way is, to conjure you"—Epilogue, As You Like It It has... Read more

In the following interview, Ashbery discusses influences on his work, his creative process, and his poetic philosophy. [Munn]: Besides writing poetry, what are your current projects? [Ashbery]: ... Read more

Critical Essay by Richard Howard Most of the poems in Houseboat Days which I can make out at all are … deliberations on the meaning of the present tense, its exactions and falsifications, its ... Read more

Critical Essay by Peter Stitt Ashbery is generally viewed as such a radical innovator, so thoroughly nouveau a poet, that perhaps the most surprising thing is how little his methods have changed duri... Read more

Critical Essay by Harold Bloom Ashbery's resource has been to make a music of the poignance of withdrawal. So, in [As You Came from the Holy Land], the "end of any season" that c... Read more

Critical Essay by Calvin Bedient The manner [of "Fantasia on 'The Nut-Brown Maid'" in Houseboat Days] defies the matter. It is itself a "new season," a joyfu... Read more

Critical Essay by Henry M. Sayre [Much modern poetry shows a predilection for weak closure of line, an open-endedness which] values the "natural" (or its illusion) over the artful, the ... Read more

Critical Essay by Harold Bloom John Ashbery's [As We Know] is certainly his most ambitious [collection]; it may even be his best so far. My tentativeness stems from its being two books at once... Read more

Critical Essay by Denis Donoghue On a first reading [of "Litany"] I read the left-hand monologue complete, all three sections, without even adverting to what was happening on the right-... Read more

In the following review, Blasing offers favorable assessment of Flow Chart. Drawing parallels to the Romantic poetry of William Wordsworth, Blasing concludes, "Flow Chart is a very entertaining... Read more

In the following review, Reilly offers tempered praise for Flow Chart. According to Reilly, Flow Chart represents "an endless flow of disrupted ruminations, literary fragments, pseudo-conversat... Read more

In the following review, Bedient offers tempered praise for And the Stars Were Shining, though he notes that this volume is "not one of his strongest." John Ashbery famously has all t... Read more

In the following review, Meyer provides critical analysis of Hotel Lautréamont and And the Stars Were Shining. For upwards of two decades now, since the acclaim that greeted his 1975 collect... Read more

Critical Essay by Helen Vendler It seems time to write about John Ashbery's subject matter…. It is Ashbery's style that has obsessed reviewers, as they alternately wrestle with i... Read more

Critical Essay by Phoebe Pettingell [Shadow Train] is a sustained experiment with a new short form…. In the past, Ashbery's lyrical strengths were best exemplified by his long poems, bu... Read more

Critical Essay by Dana Gioia Shadow Train will change no one's mind about Ashbery's merits as a poet. His admirers will praise the new-found discipline and concentration in this collect... Read more

Critical Essay by Vernon Shetley [One] might caution the reader that Shadow Train is by no means the best place to start in reading Ashbery, as it occupies a curious position in the evolving body of ... Read more