John Ashbery: They Knew What They Wanted: Collages and Poems

(Hardback)

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Description

John Ashbery is known foremost as a poet, but he's been creating collages for nearly as long as he's been writing poetry. He began working in the medium when he was an undergraduate at Harvard, more than 70 years ago. For the first time ever, this volume compiles a comprehensive selection of Ashbery's collage work from early days to the present. An extensive interview with John Yau delves into Ashbery's creative process and his love of creating visual art and Ashbery discusses the parallels between the two media.

The volume includes about 75-100 of Ashbery's collages, from his earliest work up until the present, exploring how his visual art has evolved over the years. The book also includes approximately 20 new and previously unpublished poems by Ashbery, paired with a selection of the collages.

Reviews

Ashbery is ever alert to the natural ironies that arise from juxtaposition, highlighting conflicting visions of the world as depicted in newspapers, magazines, classical paintings, and other sources. This book, which also features an intimate interview between Ashbery and the poet and art critic John Yau, is an enlightening complement to Ashbery's poetry.
Publishers Weekly


"Ashberry's images demonstrate the same sense of gleeful mischeif thats everywhere in his poetry, mixing fine art with advertising and comic strips and picture postcards, all of it married with the artists sure eye for colour and moood and perspective"
New York Times Book Review

Author Bio

John Ashbery is recognised as one of the greatest American poets of the 20th century. He has won numerous poetry awards, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Yale Younger Poets Prize, the Bollingen Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Griffin International Award, and a MacArthur "Genius" Grant. John Yau is a poet, art critic, and curator. He has published more than 50 books of poetry, fiction, and art criticism. He lives in New York City.