Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: Poems (Penguin Poets)

Rating:
Summary: Sashimi of Post-Modernity
Review: Ashberry has claimed several times that his poetry shares a particular way of expression with painting and music, in the sense that both of them can tell many things to anybody, it is not necessary for the viewer or listener to understand the meaning, but the feeling. This book is just like that.

Rating:
Summary: Explosive, subtle; redefines American poetry.
Review: John Ashbery with "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" redefines American poetry by shattering syntax and "meaning" into a million facets. Even cliches and conversational speech take on the tone of epic poetry in Ashbery's gaze. His indirect mannerism leaves the reader haunted by images that are unique in American writing. Though drawing heavily from modern French poetic technique, Ashbery lives up to Pound's dictum, "...make it new" and Rimbaud's decree that "...one must be absolutely modern." Above all, his portraits of stream-of-consciousness always surprise with their cinematic, sleight-of-hand, air of freshness. Along with Kenneth Koch, and Frank O'Hara, Ashbery remains the ringleader of the New York School of poetry.

Rating:
Summary: Sashimi of Post-Modernity
Review: This collection of poems, especially the title poem, is jarring and bewildering in its swiftness and complexity, and in the crossed-paths of struggle, you will encounter spectacular images and conclusions. The images like "now from the unbuttoned corner moving out" and "recurring wave of arrival" are vividly childlike and nostalgic but also remind me of nothing I have encountered before. Ashberry's images sometimes bang against each other like the organized chaos of bumper cars. If you find yourself lost, keep reading and re-reading, no one needs to point out subtlety. Stick around, the confusion and overlapping delay the release at the end of his movements, which rival T.S. Eliot, in their polite, mythic send-offs.