John Ashbery

John Ashbery (1927-2017) is considered one of America's greatest poets of the twentieth century. With more than 25 poetry collections, he won all the American Poetry Awards in honor and mention. His work has a special place in American poetry and it is known for its modern dimensionality and ambiguity. His interest in visual art, especially the school of abstract expressionism, pushed him to create his poetry in such a disjointed manner which refrains from narrating in any way. His first poetry collection, Some Trees, won the Yale Young Poets Award in 1956, which was then run by the well-known poet W. H. Auden, and who later admitted that he did not understand a single word of the winning work. He was officially a New York poet between 2001 and 2003 and was the American Poet's dean between 1988 and 1999.