Statutes of Liberty is the first full-length academic study of the New
York School of Poets. It contains an introduction to the work of these
writers, followed by chapters on the central figures: Frank O'Hara,
James Schuyler and John Ashbery. A postscript examines the continuing
and changing influence of the New York School. The book is also
concerned with deconstruction, a mode of literary analysis with which
Ashbery's work in particular has come to be associated by critics in
America.