An intimate and unique collection of the work of John Ashbery--a
prolific poet and art critic--pairing poetry and art writings with
playlists of music from his personal library.
This book places poetry by Ashbery (1927-2017), gathered from his later
collections, in conversation with a selection of contemporaneous art
writing. In addition, as Ashbery loved music and listened to it while
writing, the "playlists" here present samplings of music from these same
years, culled from his own library of recordings.
Ashbery's poetry is frequently described as ekphrastic, though, rather
than writing a poem "based on" or "inspired" by the content of an
artwork or piece of music, he engages with how the experience of seeing
it and the artistic strategies employed offer ways of thinking about it
and through it. Many observations from Ashbery's art writing also
provide keys to how we might read his poetry. Many recordings he
listened to feature contemporary classical works that emphasize complex
textures, disparate sounds, and disjunct phrases. Ashbery's poetry
similarly plays with a diversity of poetic textures and sudden turns
such that a reader might construct multiple narratives or pathways of
meaning. He rarely offers linear stories or focuses on evocative
descriptions of a scene or object.
In exploring this ekphrastic book project, the reader is invited to
discover how, for Ashbery, these three forms might illuminate and inform
one another. In Mónica de la Torre's introduction, she explores the
connection between the three muses of music, art, and poetry, and the
ekphrastic experience of reading Ashbery.
