A collection of poetry by John Ashbery. Published for his ninetieth birthday, Library of America presents the second volume of John Ashbery's collected poems, spanning a crucial and prolific decade in the poet's work. The volume opens with the indispensable Flow Chart (1991), in a complete text for the first time. The other collections gathered here--Hotel Lautréamont (1992), And the Stars Were Shining (1994), Can You Hear, Bird (1995), Wakefulness...

From 10 collections of his verse, John Ashbery has made his own choice of 138 poems, including short lyrics, haiku, prose poems, a selection from the 16-line poems of Shadow Train and some of his long poems. Lyrical and discursive, ribald and reflective, these poems are among the most original, inventive and challenging in American verse today. The volume includes his long hypnotic meditations -- "The Skaters," "The System," "A Wave" and "Self-Portrait...

Chinese Whispers is the British name of a game called Telephone in America. According to a certain "Professor Hoffmann" in his book Drawing Room Amusements (1879), "the participants are arranged in a circle, and the first player whispers a story or message to the next player, and so on round the circle. The original story is then compared with the final version, which has often changed beyond recognition." "Chinese Whispers" is also the superb title...

"Thirteen essays exploring movements from the 1830s to the 1960s and the premise that "art changes only through strong convictions, convictions strong enough to change society at the same time."--Bartlebysbooks.com