John Ashbery
John Ashbery
John Lawrence Ashberyis an American poet. He has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. Renowned for its postmodern complexity and opacity, Ashbery's work still proves controversial. Ashbery has stated that he wishes his work to be accessible to as many people as possible, and not to be a private dialogue with himself. At the same time,...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth28 July 1927
CountryUnited States of America
So that the old joy, modest as cake, as wine and friendship Will stay with us at the last, backed by the night Whose ruse gave it our final meaning
Much that is beautiful must be discarded So that we may resemble a taller Impression of ourselves.
The summer demands and takes away too much. /But night, the reserved, the reticent, gives more than it takes
Reading is a pleasure, but to finish reading, to come to the blank space at the end, is also a pleasure.
I don't look on poetry as closed works. I feel they're going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length.
The first year was like icing. Then the cake started to show through …
The facts of history have been too well rehearsed.
I write with experiences in mind, but I don't write about them, I write out of them.
We are prisoners of the world's demented sink. The soft enchantments of our years of innocence Are harvested by accredited experience Our fondest memories soon turn to poison And only oblivion remains in season.
It never seems to occur to anyone that each reader is different, and that even those who might be said to resemble each other will each bring an individual set of experiences and references to their reading, and interpret and misinterpret it according to these.
In the increasingly convincing darkness The words become palpable, like a fruit That is too beautiful to eat.
The soul is not a soul, Has no secret, is small, and it fits Its hollow perfectly: its room, our moment of attention.
Just when I thought there wasn't room enough for another thought in my head, I had this great idea—
I like poems you can tack all over with a hammer and there are no hollow places.