{"title":"John Ashbery","description":"\u003cp\u003eJohn Ashbery's work invites readers into a world where language and imagination intertwine seamlessly. Through collections like \u003cem\u003eOther Traditions\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eSomething Close to Music\u003c\/em\u003e, his poetry explores complex emotions and abstract landscapes with a distinctive, lyrical voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRich in cultural reflection and artistic nuance, Ashbery's poems challenge traditional forms while offering moments of unexpected clarity and beauty. His writing is essential for those interested in contemporary expressions of \u003cstrong\u003eArts \u0026amp; Culture\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"other-traditions-by-john-ashbery-9780674302440","title":"Other Traditions","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"An entertaining and shrewd little book … Ashbery is an accomplished raconteur.\" \u003c\/strong\u003e-Charles Simic, \u003cem\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe most influential American poet of his generation appraises the lesser-known writers who shaped his own confounding, infinitely inventive work.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eJohn Ashbery was the quintessential \"difficult poet.\" When asked to explain his work, he typically responded by insisting that his poetry was its own explanation. Fittingly, then, when he was invited to deliver the Norton Lectures at Harvard in 1989, Ashbery declined to spell out what he put on the page. Instead, he offered rapt audiences a tour of his influences, the authors he turned to as a \"jumpstart for times when the batteries have run down.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe poets in Ashbery's personal canon—John Clare, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Raymond Roussel, John Wheelwright, Laura Riding, and David Schubert—were all tragic figures in their own way, plagued by mental illness or poverty, ridiculed or barely recognized in their own lives, and in some cases, all but forgotten today. More importantly for Ashbery, each wrote poetry that somehow defies the reader. Clare's sometimes-monotonous naturalism, Roussel's exhausting maze of parenthetical clauses, and Wheelwright's eccentric Anglican mysticism do not invite casual reading. But under Ashbery's tutelage, we experience the idiosyncratic brilliance of these \"other traditions,\" discovering how they shaped not only Ashbery's poetics but also the broader trajectory of twentieth-century literature, from surrealism to New Criticism.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith inimitable charm, wit, and erudition, the lectures collected in \u003cem\u003eOther Traditions\u003c\/em\u003e elevate the imperfect and peculiar, affirming the literary virtues of Ashbery's difficult predecessors. The result is a revealing self-portrait of one of the giants of American poetry, if only through a convex mirror.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46871428661484,"sku":"9780674302440","price":47.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/1526283482428.jpg?v=1759880298"},{"product_id":"something-close-to-music-by-john-ashbery-9781644230701","title":"Something Close to Music","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn intimate and unique collection of the work of John Ashbery—a prolific poet and art critic—pairing poetry and art writings with playlists of music from his personal library.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSomething Close to Music\u003c\/em\u003e places poetry by Ashbery (1927-2017), gathered from his later collections, in conversation with a selection of contemporaneous art writing. In addition, as Ashbery loved music and listened to it while writing, the \"playlists\" here offer representative samplings of music from these same years, culled from Ashbery's own library of recordings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAshbery's poetry is frequently described as ekphrastic. Rather than writing a poem \"based on\" or \"inspired\" by the content of an artwork or piece of music, he engages with how the experience of seeing it and the artistic strategies employed offer ways of thinking about it and through it. Many of the observations from Ashbery's art writing also offer keys to how we might read his poetry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMany of the recordings he listened to feature contemporary classical works that emphasize complex textures, disparate sounds, and disjunct phrases. Ashbery's poetry similarly plays with a diversity of poetic textures and sudden turns such that a reader might construct multiple narratives or pathways of meaning. He rarely offers linear stories or focuses on evocative descriptions of a scene or object.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn exploring this ekphrastic book project, the reader is invited to discover how, for Ashbery, these three forms might illuminate and inform one another.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Thames and Hudson (Australia) Pty Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47432603992300,"sku":"9781644230701","price":43.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781644230701.jpg?v=1774555215"},{"product_id":"some-trees-by-john-ashbery-9780300246377","title":"Some Trees","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA capsule of the imaginative life of the individual, \u003cem\u003eSome Trees\u003c\/em\u003e is the 52nd volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eComparing him to T. S. Eliot, Stephanie Burt writes that Ashbery is “the last figure whom half of the English-language poets alive thought a great model, and the other half thought incomprehensible.” After the publication of \u003cem\u003eSome Trees\u003c\/em\u003e, selecting judge W. H. Auden famously confessed that he didn’t understand a word of it. Most reviews were negative. But in this first book of poems from one of the century’s most important poets, one finds the seeds of Ashbery’s oeuvre, including the influence of French surrealists—many of whom he translated—and abstract expressionism.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47455734268140,"sku":"9780300246377","price":40.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/61Pdoah5H6L._SL1500.jpg?v=1774794851"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.pro\/collections\/john-ashbery.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}