Category Archives: John Ashbery

Ben Lerner’s Oblique Elegy For John Ashbery

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Andrew Epstein

“I find the moments of beauty and possibility opening up in John Ashbery’s work inexhaustibly beautiful,” the fiction writer and poet Ben Lerner recently said in an interview.  This is certainly not surprising – Ashbery is a fixture in virtually … Continue reading →

Posted in Barbara Guest, Ben Lerner, Fiction, Joe Brainard, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, NY School Influence, Ron Padgett, Ted Berrigan | 6 Comments

Dining Out with Douglas Crase

Posted on January 24, 2020 by Andrew Epstein

The poet and critic Douglas Crase published his first book of poems, The Revisionist, in 1981, to rapturous reviews.  No less than Harold Bloom, that tireless canonizer, proclaimed that “Crase has every prospect of becoming one of the strong poets … Continue reading →

Posted in Douglas Crase, Fairfield Porter, Gertrude Stein, Harold Bloom, James Merrill, James Schuyler, John Ashbery, John Hollander, John Koethe, Marianne Moore, Poems, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, William James | Leave a comment

Roundup of Recent “New York School of Poetry” News and Links (1/20/20)

Posted on January 20, 2020 by Andrew Epstein

Here’s the latest roundup of some recent links, new publications, and news related to the New York School of poets. (Previous roundups can be found here). — For The Rambling, literary scholar Jason Farr wrote a moving personal essay about … Continue reading →

Posted in Alice Notley, Allen Ginsberg, Andy Warhol, Anne Waldman, Barbara Guest, Beck, Bill Berkson, Eileen Myles, Elaine de Kooning, Frank O'Hara, George Schneeman, Grace Hartigan, Jasper Johns, Joe Brainard, Joe LeSueur, John Ashbery, John Cage, John Giorno, John Yau, Kenneth Koch, Lorenzo Thomas, Merce Cunningham, MoMA, Nell Blaine, Peter Schjeldahl, Robert Rauschenberg, Robin Coste Lewis, Ron Padgett, Roundup, Roy Lichtenstein, Tracy K. Smith, Visual Art, Wynn Chamberlain | 1 Comment

Make your own Joe Brainard collage (out of fragments he chose but never used)

Posted on August 30, 2019 by Andrew Epstein

Have you ever looked at a collage by an artist like Picasso or Joseph Cornell, Kurt Schwitters or Joe Brainard, and felt a powerful urge to immediately go make a collage yourself?  Perhaps there’s something about the tactile, playful, anyone-can-do-it premise … Continue reading →

Posted in Joe Brainard, John Ashbery, Joseph Cornell, Kenward Elmslie, Mark Ford, Ron Padgett, Tibor de Nagy Gallery | Leave a comment

David Berman, Poet Among Musicians (1967-2019)

Posted on August 13, 2019 by Andrew Epstein

Last week, tragic news hit the worlds of indie rock and contemporary poetry simultaneously.  The musician and poet David Berman, leader of the acclaimed indie band Silver Jews, had passed away at the age of 52, after a long struggle … Continue reading →

Posted in David Berman, In Memoriam, James Tate, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Music, NY School Influence | 1 Comment

“Ninth Street Women”: The New York School (of Painters, Mostly) Comes to TV

Posted on April 25, 2019 by Andrew Epstein

Those of us who have been hoping for years for a Frank O’Hara biopic or Netflix mini-series devoted to the New York School poets will have to wait, but there is exciting news in this department: Amazon just announced that … Continue reading →

Posted in Abstract Expressionism, Elaine de Kooning, Frank O'Hara, Franz Kline, Grace Hartigan, Hans Hoffmann, Helen Frankenthaler, Jackson Pollock, James Schuyler, Joan Mitchell, John Ashbery, Lee Krasner, Television, Visual Art, Willem de Kooning | Leave a comment

Frank O’Hara as a Jeopardy! Clue

Posted on April 21, 2019 by Andrew Epstein

The list of poets who are well-known enough to appear in a question on a television trivia game show is relatively short.  Games like Jeopardy! frequently feature questions about old standbys like Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, Pound, Yeats, Hughes, … Continue reading →

Posted in Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Robert Creeley, Television | Leave a comment

The Power of Not Being Sure: John Ashbery, Jordan Ellenberg, and Math

Posted on March 28, 2019 by Andrew Epstein

To my surprise, in the car the other day my math-obsessed 14-year-old son Dylan suddenly exclaimed “John Ashbery!” from the backseat.  It turns out he’d reached the last pages of Jordan Ellenberg’s 2014 book How Not To Be Wrong: The Power … Continue reading →

Posted in John Ashbery | 3 Comments

“Works from the Collection of John Ashbery,” at Kasmin Gallery in NY

Posted on November 1, 2018 by Andrew Epstein

An exhibition of artworks from the collection of the late John Ashbery opens tomorrow (11/1) at the Kasmin Gallery in New York.  Over the course of his long life, Ashbery collected works by a wide range of artists, many of … Continue reading →

Posted in Abstract Expressionism, Alex Katz, Art Exhibit, Fairfield Porter, Helen Frankenthaler, Jane Freilicher, Joe Brainard, John Ashbery, Larry Rivers, Rudy Burkhardt, Visual Art | Leave a comment

Roundup of Recent “New York School of Poetry” News and Links (8/23/18)

Posted on August 23, 2018 by Andrew Epstein

Here’s the latest roundup of recent links, new publications, and news related to the New York School of poets.  (For my most recent roundup, see here). — The indie band Deerhunter released an album titled Double Dream of Spring, a … Continue reading →

Posted in Alice Notley, Anne Waldman, Bernadette Mayer, Bill Berkson, Bobbie Louise Hawkins, Criticism, David Lehman, Douglas Crase, Douglas Oliver, Eileen Myles, Fairfield Porter, Frank O'Hara, Geoffrey O'Brien, Irving Sandler, Jane Freilicher, Joan Mitchell, Joe Brainard, John Ashbery, John Yau, Kenneth Koch, Kevin Young, Larry Rivers, Music, NY School Influence, Robert Creeley, Robert Dash, Ron Padgett, Roundup, Thomas Devaney, Vincent Katz, Vincent Warren, Visual Art | 2 Comments