Description

David Zwirner Books, paperback

Publication Date: June 7, 2022

Publisher Marketing: This book places poetry by Ashbery, 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.

Ashberys 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 Ashberys 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 phrasesqualities which are mimicked in his poetry.

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 Mnica de la Torres introduction, she explores the connection between the three muses of music, art, and poetry, and the ekphrastic experience of reading Ashbery.