Selections from the first three decades of the poetry of John Ashbery, author of Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

The late John Ashbery was a poet whose “teasing, delicate, soulful lines made him one of the most influential figures of late-20th and early 21st century American literature.” (The New York Times)  This important volume gathers work from his first ten collections of poetry, from Some Trees, which was chosen by W.H. Auden for the Yale Younger Poets Series (1956), to A Wave (1984). The 138 poems in this volume include short lyrics, haikus, prose poems, and many of Ashbery’s major long poems, including “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” offering a beautiful distillation of the first thirty years of his remarkable, groundbreaking work. “Contains Ashbery’s greatest work and confirms his position as one of America’s finest poets since Wallace Stevens.” —Edward Guerschi, Newsday

“Mr. Ashbery remains one of his generation’s most gifted and eloquent poets . . . He writes persuasively—and movingly—of the poetic process, of the attempts of the artist to wring order out of chaos.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“No other poet is as daring . . . None inhabits such a Versailles of the imagination. This formidable new volume offers the finest of his oeuvre.” —Carolyn Forche, Vanity Fair