Something Close to Music

This book places poetry by Ashbery (1927û2017), 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 ôplaylistsö here offer representative samplings of music from these same years, culled from AshberyÆs own library of recordings.

AshberyÆs poetry is frequently described as ekphrastic, though, rather than writing a poem ôbased on'' or ôinspiredö by the content of an artwork of 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 of the observations from AshberyÆs art writing also offer keys to how we might read his poetry.

Many of the recordings he listened to feature contemporary classical works that emphasize complex textures, disparate sounds, and disjunct phrases. AshberyÆs poetry similarly plays with a diversity of poetic textures and sudden turns such that a re