Notes from the Air

Starred review from October 15, 2007
Ashbery’s original, seminal Selected Poems
crowned the first half of a career that has largely defined American poetry since the middle of the 20th century. One could think of that first Selected
, published in 1985, as the summation of Ashbery’s philosophical period, in which the poet self-consciously interrogated the grip—or lack of one—language exerts on the world at large, most notably in poems like “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror.” This new volume—beginning with poems from April Galleons
(1987) and ending with Where Shall I Wander
(2005)—presents the first panoramic view of Ashbery’s second phase, in which he explores, celebrates, sends up and revels in the American vernacular. Encompassing the surreal (“You mop your forehead with a rose, recommending its thorns”), the tender (“Everything was spotless in the little house of our desire”), the self-deprecating (“There was I: a stinking adult”) and the quietly, utterly haunting (“Those who came closest did not come close”), Ashbery seems to hit every possible note in his scattershot manner. Of particular interest are extended selections from the book-length works Flow Chart
(1991) and Girls on the Run
(1999). This is an essential book. Along with the original Selected
(Penguin), we can now see the full impact of the most representative poet of the last 50 years.

November 15, 2007
Ill tell you what it was like, the opening line in The Driftwood Altar, can serve as Ashberys raison dtreas a poet. In poem after poem, book after book, the much-lauded Ashbery has lifted readers out of themselves and into a whirling realm of images, scents, music, crazy juxtapositions, magical vistas, and a cast of lovers, strangers, friends, ghosts, and icons. A lyric poet with a love of wordplay, a painterly eye, and a storytellers pleasure in the unexpected and the inevitable, Ashbery is intricate, conversational, mystic, down-to-earth, and surreal. Now in his eightieth year and with a ravishing new collection, A Worldly Country (2007), published not long ago, prolific and pondering Ashbery has selected his favorites from10 collections that span two decades. Here, then, are dazzling and heart-gripping poems from, to name a few standouts, April Galleons (1987), Hotel Lautr'amont (1992), Can You Hear, Bird? (1995), Your Name Here (2000), and Where Shall I Wander? (2005), forming an invaluable selected volume by an American master.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)