John Ashbery

John Ashbery has published more than twenty volumes of poetry, including his Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. A new collection of poems, Commotion of the Birds (Ecco), is out this year.

Domino Effect

Domino Effect Domino Effect

For an erection lasting more than four hours tell him you don’t agree with him. The most desirable of her pots authored a vast intelligence. Don’t make me sick of this, followed ev…

Nov 2, 2016 / Books & the Arts / John Ashbery

The Overhead

The Overhead The Overhead

For two decades we kept Mum in the attic. Finally, one hubba hubba day in spring we let her out to walk in the park. She was never seen again. The police refused to inspect the par…

Nov 2, 2016 / Books & the Arts / John Ashbery

Forget Where I Heard It Forget Where I Heard It

With pigeon force the air men come clattering. It would be sad if it wasn’t so funny, one swore. Stay out of the nettles. Do not live above the shop. His men may find you there. Otherwise, as coma says, my beans, my peas, my coma get read into the riot act. That comes later. After three decades of futility, you have to ask: Who was this composer? Was he known for anything else? Is the mere survival of the notes justified, or do we all survive this way, more or less?

Feb 11, 2015 / Books & the Arts / John Ashbery

Longing of the Accords Longing of the Accords

"life's white machine"    Geoffrey G. O'Brien and Jeff Clark   We're all tenants, of one kind or another: lodgers, proprietors, houseguests. So what matters is what matters for most of us. We shrink in silken alarm in the corridor--someone is coming? But boa-clad ushers receive us. We were told we were on message, were the subject, or topic. In fact it made a little difference   but not enough to disturb or quiet us. Concluding, perhaps rightly, we were of the one or other sort, you signed off. It was OK to take everything, though not to want it.

Mar 11, 2009 / Books & the Arts / John Ashbery

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