Ashbery, John (Vol. 6) - Ashbery, John 1927–
Ashbery, John 1927–
Ashbery is an American poet, dramatist, and critic. He is determinedly avant-garde and so has suffered the fate of experimental poets—obscurity. The frequent changes of tone and point of view in Ashbery's work are intended to convey the impression of flux. He has said that work by Auden, Stevens, Perse, Roussel, and Hölderlin influenced his own early development. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 5-8, rev. ed.)
John Ashbery's new poems [Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror and The Vermont Notebook] are harrowing precisely because they are so good-natured, relaxed, even optimistic. The speaker of these verses emerges as a funny, unpretentious, rather bewildered man, always ready to see the bright side of things but forced to conclude they are frightening and veiled from our view. As one poem ends: "But now we are at Cape Fear and the overland trail/Is impassable, and a dense curtain of mist hangs over the...
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