Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: Poems (Poets, Penguin) [Paperback]

John Ashbery (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1990 | Series: Poets, Penguin

John Ashberry won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. Ashberry reaffirms the poetic powers that have made him such an outstanding figure in contemporary literature. This new book continues his astonishing explorations of places where no one has ever been.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (January 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140586687
• ISBN-13: 978-0140586688
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #345,229 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic Worth Your Time, March 8, 2006

By 

David Miller "Akiva David Miller" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: Poems (Poets, Penguin) (Paperback)

John Ashbery is probably the most famous and most productive of the Post-Modernists & the New York School of poets. His career has been long and productive. He remains to this day very visible, frequently publishing his poems in the New Yorker. It was, in fact, within the pages of the New Yorker that I first encountered Ashbery in my youth. I hated his work immediately. In fact, it took years for me to discover the incredible beauty and intellectual stimulation within Ashbery's poetry. Over the years I have come to appreciate Ashbery's more recent, or later work most of all. Although I appreciate the greater simplicity of his earlier work, and the great, convoluted anguish of his middle work, it is the vision of his later work that engages me most.

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror belongs primarily to his middle period. It, of course, famously won many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. I own this edition of the work and it has held up well with multiple readings, both the actual paperback, and the text. When I initially read this volume I found it strangely troubling and thought-provoking. I felt almost physically anguished as I read it over and over again. When I first encountered it I surrendered nearly a complete month to repeatedly devouring Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. However, in the end I found that it is still not my favorite of his works. Also, I must confess that I found the short poems in the volume much more engaging than the long, title poem.

As a poet, myself, for years I have found endless inspiration within Ashbery's writing (as well as the writing of many others, including the particularly noteworthy Charles Simic). I think for those first approaching Ashbery's work, this is probably the best place to start. I believe you will find that you either love or hate his work. If you discover that you love it, move on to other works such as The Mooring of Starting Out - a 1 volume edition of his first 4 volumes of poetry, or Where Shall I Wander - one of his latest works...or, there are so many others to choose from, all good, solid works of poetry. If you've already read other works by Ashbery, but have not read this work, you need to get yourself a copy and get to it. I am convinced that it would be a mistake to overlook this very important and engaging work.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ashbery's Self-Portrait, December 10, 2008

By 

Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: Poems (Poets, Penguin) (Paperback)

The American poet John Ashbery's (b. 1927) book "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" received extraordinary accolades upon its publication in 1975. The book won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Critics Circle Award. The book, especially the lengthy concluding poem for which it is named, solidified Ashbery's reputation as a major American poet and remains his most widely-read work. The book consists of 35 poems, including the title poem. I am in the midst of reading the Library of America's collection of Ashbery's poems from 1956-1987 and wanted to pause to try to take stock through this important collection.

Ashbery's poetry and this volume resist paraphrase. Each poem includes lines and figures which are indivually striking and often beautiful; but the poems cannot be read discursively. The diction shifts markedly in the poems from the solemn to the profane. There are sudden shifts in person and in tenses. Frequently, lines or sections are clear enough, but a poem as a whole will appear opaque. There is a sense in Ashbery's work of cutting through the tendency to rationalize and to focus on the joy of experience in its diversity. The concreteness and detail of the poem show a love of things in their variety and keen emotional responses. The poems frequently have the sense of an interior monologue or a discussion among friends. For all their difficulty, the poems have a certain lightness of touch. The poetry is urbane and shows great knowledge of art, music, literature, movies, and popular culture. And with reading, some sense of what Ashbery is about becommes clear.

"Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" was a watershed book for Ashbery because it is somewhat more accessible than his earlier avant-garde books. Yet the difficulties remain. The title poem, Ashbery's masterpiece, is, on one level accessible to read. It moves in a narrative reflection, and can be followed, up to a point. This is still a difficult poem which will bear close and repeated readings.

The title poem is based on a painting of 1524 of the same name by Parmigianino that now is in the Kunsthistoriche Museum, Vienna. The painting shows a reflection of the artist on a convex mirror. It is marked by a seemingly distorted and large right hand, and the somewhat feminine yet intense face of the artist staring at the viewer. In his poem, Ashbery addresses the artist, discusses and questions him about his painting, and quotes commenters on the painting contemporary and modern. He describes the work and his reaction to it, e.g.

"That is the tune but there are no words
The words are only speculation
(From the Latin speculum, mirror):
They seek and cannot find the meaning of the music."

The suggestion is that words are inadequate to capture reality, which must be conceived imaginatively. As the poem progresses, it discusses tradition and interpretation and perspectivism in understanding reality. The artist's vision is brought forward as Ashbery meditates on modern life and its cacophony. The poem becomes its own reflection of Ashbery's understanding of the creative endeavor.

The short poems in this volume are overshadowed by the Self-Portrait. These poems tend to be even more elliptical than this major poem of the volume. In my reading, I tried to identify the works that I could respond to while passing over, for the present, others that seemed to me obscure. This might be a good way for other readers to approach the book.

The poems I enjoyed include the first poem, "As One Put Drunk into the Packet-Boat, the title of which is based on a poem called "Tom May's Death" by Andrew Marvell. (1621 --1678). Ashbery begins with the words "I tried each thing, only some were immortal and free" which in the context of the poem seems to speak of the renewal of the creative endeavor. The "Poem in Three Parts" begins with a startling phrase ("Once I let a guy blow me") but proceeds to an exploration of how one responds to experience: "Who goes to bed with what/ is unimportant. Feelings are important./ Mostly I think of feelings, they fill up my life/ Like the wind, like tumbling clouds/ In a sky full of clouds, clouds upon clouds.""

There is a charm and a picture of adolescent sexuality in "Mixed Feelings". The poem "The One Thing that can Save America" with its sense of nostalgia as Ashbery describes the "timeless" truths of warding off danger "Now and in the future, in cool yards,/In quiet small houses in the country,/Our country, in fenced areas, in cool shady streets." The poems "Tenth Symphony", "Fear of Death" and "City Afternoon" are among others that I enjoyed.

This book is difficult, modern poetry that may not appeal to all readers. The poems in this book are evocative and I think a sense of them can be got from sympathetic reading. This book deserves its reputation as a major work of American literature.

Robin Friedman

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ashberry the magician, April 14, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Asturias, Spain) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: Poems (Poets, Penguin) (Paperback)

Ashberry has claimed several times that his poetry shares a particular way of expression with painting and music, in the sense that both of them can tell many things to anybody, it is not necessary for the viewer or listener to understand the meaning, but the feeling. This book is just like that.