John Ashbery - Collected Poems 1956-1987

The noted critic Harold Bloom has observed that "since the death of Wallace Stevens in 1955, we have been in the Age of Ashbery." In the Sacramento News & Review, John Freeman exclaimed that Ashbery "is to poetry what Raymond Carver was to the short story, what Pete Rose was to the bunt."Indeed, by any standard John Ashbery is a legend in the world of poetry. Winner of every major American literary award, Ashbery has enjoyed a long career marked by a remarkable body of work that has consistently challenged and expanded the forms and fashions of American poetry. Now, The Library of America, "our quasi-official canon of American literature" according to the New York Times, has published Ashbery in its landmark series along side the likes of Whitman, Longfellow, and Frost.In October 2008, The Library of America published the first authoritative edition of America's preeminent living poet with JOHN ASHBERY: COLLECTED POEMS 1956-1987. This landmark volume contains more than 10
0 pages of rare and previously uncollected material from the first half of Ashbery's career; it's an extraordinary treasure trove for poetry lovers and a newsworthy publishing event. He becomes only the fourth living writer-and the first living poet-to have his works collected by the nonprofit publisher specializing in American literature.Beginning with Some Trees in 1956, John Ashbery has charted a profoundly original course, opening up pathways for future generations of poets. At once hermetic and exuberantly curious, meditative and unnervingly funny, dreamlike and steeped in everyday realities, and alive to every nuance of American speech, Ashbery's poems constantly discover new worlds within language. This portrait of a modern master-the first of two definitive volumes-includes the complete texts of Ashbery's first twelve books, including such groundbreaking collections as Rivers and Mountains, Three Poems, The Vermont Notebook (with Joe Brainard's full-page illustration
s), and Houseboat Days. Also featured is Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror for which Ashbery won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.Previewing the book in a special boxed and starred review, the trade journal Publishers Weekly has called JOHN ASHBERY: COLLECTED POEMS 1956-1987 "a major book," praising it as a fitting tribute to "a towering figure in contemporary American poetry." To celebrate the book's publication, Ashbery will appear at a special evening in his honor at New York's famed 92nd Street Y on October 27, 2008.

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