John Ashbery Quotes

John Lawrence Ashbery, a renowned American poet who has won almost every major American Poetry award and has more than twenty poetry volumes. John had a more diver and a larger vocabulary that many other famous poets. Over the past 50 years in the history of American poetry, no one figure has appeared so large other than John. While John Ashbery is well known for post-modern complexity and opaqueness in his work, he wishes it to be public and accessible to as many as possible rather than a private channel of communication.

Dream

"And whether it is Thursday, or the day is stormy, With thunder and rain, or the birds attack each other, We have rolled into another dream "

Ashbery’s first ambition was to become a painter for which he even took classes for four years at the age of 11. During his graduation in Harvard College he was a member of “Harvard Advocate”, and the Signet Society. Ashbery’s influential style was self-reflexive, ambiguously narrative and multi-phonic. His poetry was open-ended and multi-various.

Self-portrait in a convex mirror has won a Pulitzer Prize in 1976. A Wave, Ashbery’s critically acclaimed collection won “Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize” as well as “The Bollingen Prize” for his work. His epic work the Flow Chart was published in 1991. John Ashbery also translated a lot of French poets and these translations were assembled in a two-volume collection. In addition, to his numerous awards Ashbery also served as the Poet Laureate of the State of the New York. Ashbery also read his poetry at the Living Theater New York and various other universities to include Yale University, University of Chicago and Texas.