3.5
Some Trees
ByPublisher Description
Ashbery's
narrowly beat out a manuscript by fellow New York poet Frank O'Hara to win the renowned Yale Series of Younger Poets prize in 1955—after the book had been rejected in an early screening round. Competition judge W. H. Auden was perhaps the first to note, in his original preface to
, the meditative polyphony that decades of readers have come to identify as Ashbery's unique style: "If he is to be true to nature in this world, he must accept strange juxtapositions of imagery, singular associations of ideas."
But not all is strange and associative here:
includes "The Instruction Manual," one of Ashbery's most conversational and perhaps most quoted poems, as well as a number of poems that display his casually masterful handling of such traditional forms as the sonnet, the pantoum, the Italian canzone, and even, with "The Painter," the odd tricky sestina.
, an essential collection for Ashbery scholars and newbies alike, introduced one of postwar America's most enduring and provocative poetic voices, by turns conversational, discordant, haunting, and wise.
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About John Ashbery
's latest book of poems is
. From 1960 to 1965, he was the
art critic and
Paris correspondent. France has named him Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and Officier of the Légion d'Honneur. He has received a National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and President Obama awarded him a National Humanities Medal.
and
's latest poetry book is
They have edited Ashbery's essays in
and in
, as well as his translations of Pierre Martory. She teaches at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy; he is the director of writing at Pace University.
Other books by John Ashbery
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