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John Ashbery Biography

John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet. He published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. Renowned for its postmodern complexity and opacity, Ashbery's work still proves controversial. Ashbery stated that he wished his work to be accessible to as many people as possible, and not to be a private dialogue with himself. At the same time, he once joked that some critics still view him as "a harebrained, homegrown surrealist whose poetry defies even the rules and logic of Surrealism."

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John Ashbery Quotes

One can lose a good idea by not writing it down, yet by losing it one can have it: it nourishes other asides it knows nothing of, would not recognize itself in, yet when the negotiations are terminated, speaks in the acts of that progenitor, and does recognize itself, is grateful for not having done so earlier.

Done, Grateful, Ideas, Nourishes, Writing

The promise of learning is a delusion. . . . Tomorrow would alter the sense of what had already been learned, that the learning process is extended in this way, so that from this standpoint none of us ever graduates from college, for time is an emulsion, and probably thinking not to grow up is the brightest kind of maturity for us, right now at any rate.

Alter, College, Delusion, Growing Up, Maturity, Thinking

Things can harden meaningfully in the moment of indecision

Harden, Indecision, Meaningfully, Moments, Things

What I like about music is its ability to be convincing, to carry an argument through successfully to the finish, though the terms of the argument remain unknown quantities.

Ability, Argument, Music, Remain, Terms

I don't want to read what is going to slide down easily; there has to be some crunch, a certain amount of resilience.

Down, Read, Resilience, Slides, Want

This whole moment is the groin Of a borborygmic giant who even now Is rolling over on us in his sleep.

Borborygmic, Groin, Inspirational, Life, Moment, Sleep

Not until it starts to stink does the inevitable happen.

Doe, Events, Happen, Inevitable, Starts, Stink

Alone with our madness and favorite flower We see that there really is nothing left to write about. Or rather, it is necessary to write about the same old things In the same way, repeating the same things over and over For love to continue and be gradually different.

Flower, Left, Love, Necessary, Same, Writing

The term ignorant is indeed perhaps an overstatement, implying as it does that something is known somewhere, whereas in reality we are not even sure of this: we in fact cannot aver with any degree of certainty that we are ignorant. Yet this is not so bad; we have at any rate kept our open-mindedness -- that, at least, we may be sure that we have -- and are not in any danger, or so it seems, of freezing into the pious attitudes of those true spiritual bigots whose faces are turned toward eternity and who therefore can see nothing.

Attitude, Bigots, Certainty, Danger, Reality, Spiritual

Poetry comes to me out of thin air or out of my unconscious mind. It's sort of the way dreams come to us and the way that we get knowledge from them, through television, old movies, which I watch a lot of. Lines of dialogue suddenly seem to be part of a poem.

Dream, Dreams, Mind, Old Movie, Watch

What is the past, what is it all for? A mental sandwich?

Mental, Past, Sandwich, Sandwiches

I think that in the process of writing, all kinds of unexpected things happen that shift the poet away from his plan and that these accidents are really what we mean when we talk about poetry.

Away, Happen, Mean, Talk, Thinking, Writing

Reading is a pleasure, but to finish reading, to come to the blank space at the end, is also a pleasure.

Finish, Pleasure, Reading, Space

I don't find any direct statements in life. My poetry imitates or reproduces the way knowledge or awareness come to me, which is by fits and starts and by indirection. I don't think poetry arranged in neat patterns would reflect that situation. My poetry is disjunct, but then so is life.

Life, Patterns, Poetry, Reflect, Thinking, Way

Until, accustomed to disappointments, you can let yourself rule and be ruled by these strings or emanations that connect everything together, you haven't fully exorcised the demon of doubt that sets you in motion like a rocking horse that cannot stop rocking.

Disappointment, Exorcised, Horse, Rule, Sets, Trust

My feeling is that most political poetry is preaching to the choir, and that the people who are going to make the political changes in our lives are not the people who read poetry, unfortunately. Poetry not specifically aimed at political revolution, though, is beneficial in moving people toward that kind of action, as well as other kinds of action. A good poem makes me want to be active on as many fronts as possible.

Action, Kind, Lives, Moving, People, Political Revolution

. . . the first step of the terrible journey toward feeling somebody should act, that ends in utter confusion and hopelessness, east of the sun and west of the moon.

Confusion, Ends, Journey, Moon, Step

I don't look on poetry as closed works. I feel they're going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length.

Feels, Head, Length, Looks, Occasionally, Poetry

I would like to please the reader, and I think that surprise has to be an element of this, and that may necessitate a certain amount of teasing. To shock the reader is something else again. That has to be handled with great care if you're not going to alienate and hurt him, and I'm firmly against that, just as I disapprove of people who dress with that in mind--dye their hair blue and stick safety pins through their noses and so on.

Hair, Hurt, Please, Shock, Stick, Thinking

until only infinity remained of beauty

Beauty, Infinity, Remained

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