Description
A crackling, moving new collection from one of America's greatest living poets. In over twenty-six original books, the poems of John Ashbery have long served as signposts guiding us through the delights, woes, hypocrisies, and uncertainties of living in the modern world. With language harvested from everyday speech, fragments of pop culture, objects and figures borrowed from art and literature, his work makes light out of darkness, playing with tone and style to show how even the seemingly frivolous stuff of existence can be employed to express the deepest levels of feeling. Commotion of the Birds showcases once again Ashbery's mastery of a staggering range of voices and his singular lyric agility: wry, frank, contemplative, resigned, bemused, and ecstatic. The poet in this new collection is at once removed from and immersed in the terrain of his examination. Disarmingly conversational, he invites the reader to join him in looking out onto the future with humour, curiosity, and insight. The lines of these poems achieve a low-humming, thrilling point of vibration, a jostling of feathers before flight.
About the Author
John Ashbery was born in Rochester, New York, in 1927. He has published more than twenty collections of poetry, beginning in 1953 with Turandot and Other Poems. In 1976, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror won the Pulitzer, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award. His art writings are collected in Reported Sightings: Art Chronicles 1957-1987 (Carcanet, 1990) and his literary essays appear in the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, Other Traditions (Harvard University Press, 2000), and in Selected Prose (Carcanet, 2004). Widely honoured internationally, he is the recipient of the Robert Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Horst Bienek Prize for Poetry from theBavarian Academy of Fine Arts (Munich), the Antonio Feltrinelli International Prize for Poetry from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Rome), and the Grand Prix des Biennales Internationales de Poesie (Brussels), all given for lifetime achievement. In 2002 he was named Officier of the Legion d'Honneur of the Republic of France. In 2012 he was awarded a National Humanities Medal, presented to him by President Obama at the White House. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.
Reviews
'The lyrics in Breezeway are as good as his finest.' - The Observer New Review; 'Quick Question, with the hushed intensity of its music and great lyric beauty, could only be Ashbery.' - Financial Times; 'He is quite simply the finest poet in English of his generation.' - The Times
Book Information
ISBN 9781784103088
Author Insight Guides
Format Paperback
Page Count 84
Imprint Carcanet Press Ltd
Publisher Carcanet Press Ltd
About the Author
John Ashbery was born in Rochester, New York, in 1927. He has published more than twenty collections of poetry, beginning in 1953 with Turandot and Other Poems. In 1976, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror won the Pulitzer, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award. His art writings are collected in Reported Sightings: Art Chronicles 1957-1987 (Carcanet, 1990) and his literary essays appear in the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, Other Traditions (Harvard University Press, 2000), and in Selected Prose (Carcanet, 2004). Widely honoured internationally, he is the recipient of the Robert Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Horst Bienek Prize for Poetry from theBavarian Academy of Fine Arts (Munich), the Antonio Feltrinelli International Prize for Poetry from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Rome), and the Grand Prix des Biennales Internationales de Poesie (Brussels), all given for lifetime achievement. In 2002 he was named Officier of the Legion d'Honneur of the Republic of France. In 2012 he was awarded a National Humanities Medal, presented to him by President Obama at the White House. His work has been translated into more than twenty-five languages.
Reviews
'The lyrics in Breezeway are as good as his finest.' - The Observer New Review; 'Quick Question, with the hushed intensity of its music and great lyric beauty, could only be Ashbery.' - Financial Times; 'He is quite simply the finest poet in English of his generation.' - The Times
Book Information
ISBN 9781784103088
Author Insight Guides
Format Paperback
Page Count 84
Imprint Carcanet Press Ltd
Publisher Carcanet Press Ltd
