And the Stars Were Shining
Poems
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Witty yet heartbreaking, conversational yet richly lyrical, John Ashbery’s sixteenth poetry collection showcases a mastery uniquely his own
And the Stars Were Shining originally appeared in 1994, toward the midpoint of a startlingly creative period in Ashbery’s long career, during which the great American poet published no fewer than nine books in ten years. The collection brings together more than fifty compact, jewellike, intensely felt poems, including the well-known “Like a Sentence” (“How little we know, / and when we know it!”) and the lyrical, deeply moving thirteen-part title poem recognized as one of the author’s greatest. This collection is Ashbery at his most accessible, graceful, and elegiac.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Readers have at times confused Ashbery's ( Flow Chart ) interest in examining the appearances of things with a lack of poetic depth. The reasons? Perhaps that Ashbery is typically intrigued by surfaces because his main theme is the perception of reality; and, being of a more lyrical than critical inclination, he pursues philosophical investigation in, by and through poetry, so that his poems tend to embody the idea that is their subject. In his 16th collection, Ashbery once again addresses his chosen theme--and others--through many tightly bound short poems and a longer piece in 13 parts, the title poem. And while his main concern is the work of the imagination, he begins to sound a more narrative voice, while never allowing the poems to develop into true extended narratives. The poet is less reticent (though still far from explicit) in committing himself to the ideas sown in his work. Also, he takes up an unaccustomed subject: the discerning of a poem after the poet's passing, implying his own death. Characteristically, it is in his longer poems that Ashbery holds a situation up to the light and approaches it most variously and richly. Though readers may not grasp or even catch sight of every angle, they will be gripped.
