poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

A wonderful early poem from a true American Master. Ashbery's extensive contribution to American poetry over the five decades that followed the publication of this poem has helped refine the very definition of the American poetic. No living poet matters more to the development of lyric poetry in the U.S. He is as important a figure in the American tradition in poetry as Whitman or William Carlos Williams. T. S. Eliot once wrote that Yeats was "part of the conciousness of an age which cannot be understood without [him]. This is a very high position to assign to him; but I believe that it is one which is secure." I would, without reservations, say the same of Ashbery today.