John ashbery biography

John ashbery biography

John ashbery biography (1927-2017)

John Ashbery (born July 28, 1927, Rochester, New York, U.S.—died September 3, 2017, Hudson, New York) was an American poet noted for the elegance, originality, and obscurity of his poetry.

Ashbery graduated from Harvard University in 1949 and received a master’s degree from Columbia University in 1951. After working as a copywriter in New York City (1951–55), he lived in Paris until 1965, contributing art criticism to the Paris edition of the New York Herald-Tribune and to the American periodical Art News. Returning to New York, he served as executive editor of Art News from 1965 to 1972 and then took a post teaching poetry and creative writing at Brooklyn College.

Literary life

One of the best American poets of the 20th century was John Ashbery. He received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Yale Younger Poets Prize, the Bollingen Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Griffin International Award, the MacArthur “Genius” Grant, and almost all of the major American poetry honors. Ashbery’s poetry pushes readers to set aside any assumptions they may have about the goals, subjects, and poetic structure of verse in favor of a work of literature that considers the boundaries of language and the erratic nature of awareness. “No figure looms so large in American poetry over the past 50 years as John Ashbery,” wrote critic Langdon Hammer in 2008.

Turandot and Other Poems (1953), Ashbery’s debut book, was followed by Some Trees (1956), Rivers and Mountains (1966), The Tennis Court Oath (1962), and The Double Dream of Spring (1970). His 1975 poetry collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror won the National Book Critics Circle medal, the Pulitzer medal for poetry, and the National Book Award for poetry.

His subsequent poetry volumes include Houseboat Days (1977), A Wave (1984), April Galleons (1987), Flow Chart (1991), And the Stars Were Shining (1994), Can You Hear, Bird (1995), Wakefulness (1998), Chinese Whispers (2002), A Worldly Country (2007), Planisphere (2009), Quick Question (2012), and Breezeway (2015). Collected Poems, 1956–1987 was published in 2008.

Translation from French

In his Collected French Translations: Poetry (2014), Ashbery translated from French and included works by Yves Bonnefoy, Arthur Rimbaud, and other poets; in its companion volume, Collected French Translations: Prose (2014), he included works by Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, countess d’Aulnoy, Georges Bataille, and others.

Legacy

Because Ashbery’s poetry was so difficult, it was initially met with confusion and even anger. His poems are distinguished by striking imagery, beautiful rhythms, a complex structure, and abrupt changes in theme and tone that result in odd fragmentary and obliquity effects. They are valued more as incredibly evocative and surreal meditations than for any discernible significance they might have.

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