And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name
by John Ashbery
‘And Ut Pictura Poesis Is Her Name’ by John Ashbery is about poetry as an art form to express what’s in a creator’s mind. This piece focuses chiefly on the role of art and its nature.
Forties Flick
by John Ashbery
Published in John Ashbery’s award-winning poetry collection, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975), the poem ‘Forties Flick’ is a postmodern, nostalgic lyric on film noir of the “classic period.” This piece vividly portrays a trademark scene of Hollywood crime dramas of the 1940s.
Hard Times
by John Ashbery
Published in Shadow Train (1981), John Ashbery’s ‘Hard Times’ is about the poet’s take on the modern world and its future. It showcases people’s ignorance of the issues that troubles Ashbery the most.
Knocking Around
by John Ashbery
‘Knocking Around’ by John Ashbery is a thoughtful and image-rich contemporary poem about life. The four stanzas use a variety of examples of figurative language to describe the lights and darks or the days and nights, or life.
Paradoxes and Oxymorons
by John Ashbery
‘Paradoxes and Oxymorons’ by John Ashbery invites the reader to think about meaning in language through highlighting contradictions.
The Instruction Manual
by John Ashbery
‘The Instruction Manual’ by John Ashbery is poem that is constructed to express the struggles of a creative thinker in a factual, mundane task.
What is Poetry?
by John Ashbery
‘What is Poetry?’ by John Ashbery is a complex poem about poetry and what exactly it is. It uses Ashbery’s traditional obscure language and meaning.