Quick Question

Description

In QUICK QUESTION John Ashbery extends an invitation to readers to accompany him into the extraordinary worlds of the everyday, experienced through the box of tricks that is language. He revels in twist and transformation, the constant mutability of words and things: 'Whatever stops playing is the enemy of the incomplete'. He can stop us in our tracks with the accuracy of his perception: 'Somewhere in America someone is trying to figure out / how to pay for this'. Aware of the paradoxes of his own writing, he teases us with questions: 'Is it all doggerel and folderol?' 'Would I lie to you?' Either way, his invitation is irresistible: come in, see what happens.

JOHN ASHBERY was born in Rochester, New York, and educated at Harvard and Columbia. He is the author of more than twenty books of poetry. He is the recipient of many honours, including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and a MacArthur 'genius' award. The French government appointed Ashbery as both Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and Officier de la Legion d'honneur.

'Ashbery's is a poetry not of arrival, but of movement, of invigorating shifts in tone - a delight to experience.' Guardian