Parallel Movement of the Hands, John Ashbery
Parallel Movement of the Hands, John Ashbery
List: $26.99 | Sale: $18.89
Club: $13.49

Parallel Movement of the Hands
Five Unfinished Longer Works

Author: John Ashbery

Narrator: Fred Sanders

Unabridged: 4 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Ecco

Published: 06/29/2021

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included


Synopsis

A stunning collection of work from beloved poet John Ashbery, his first posthumous book 
Renowned for his inventive mind, ambitious play with language, and dexterity with a wide range of tones and styles, John Ashbery has been a major artistic figure in the cultural life of our time. Parallel Movement of the Hands gathers unpublished, book-length projects and long poems written between 1993 and 2007, along with one (as yet) undated work, to showcase Ashbery’s diverse and multifaceted artistic obsessions and sources, from children’s literature, cliffhanger cinema reels, silent films, and classical music variations by Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny to the history of early photography. Ashbery even provides a fresh and humorous take on a well-worn parable from the Gospel of Matthew. These works demonstrate that while producing and publishing the shorter, discrete poems often associated with his late career, Ashbery continued to practice the long-form, project-based writing that has long been an important element of his oeuvre.Edited and introduced by Ashbery’s former assistant poet Emily Skillings and including a preface by acclaimed poet and novelist Ben Lerner, this compelling and varied collection offers new insights into the process and creative interests of a poet whose work continues to influence generations of artists and poets with its signature intertextuality, openness, and simultaneity. A landmark publication of never-before-seen works, this book will enlighten scholars as well as new readers of one of America’s most prominent and celebrated poets.Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

About John Ashbery

John Ashbery was born in Rochester, New York, in 1927. He wrote more than twenty books of poetry, including Quick Question; Planisphere; Notes from the Air; A Worldly Country; Where Shall I Wander; and Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, which received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the National Book Award. The winner of many prizes and awards, both nationally and internationally, he received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation in 2011 and a National Humanities Medal, presented by President Obama at the White House, in 2012. Ashbery died in September 2017 at the age of ninety.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Richard on June 14, 2021

All I really knew about John Ashbery's reputation was that of being a relatively "difficult" read, not as transparent as some of the other poets of his generation. I think I have read a few of his shorter works and didn't have a good sense of what I was going to find in this, the first collection of......more

Goodreads review by Nicholas on January 26, 2022

I am biased becauae LOVE ASHBERY and I really wish they recorded more of his books - loved this on audible. Much discussed in intro is the issue of unfinished work, and how Ashbery one time forgot the last page of a poem and said, well, its fine. You got the experience. Thats how his poems are meant......more

Goodreads review by Andy on March 05, 2024

For this poet, perhaps more than any other, seeing unfinished works can be intriguing as well as pleasurable. Ashbery has never made sense, only made verses. (Actually, parts of the long poem "The Kane Richmond Project" consist of narratives you can follow; I think Ashbery was relaxing when he wrote......more

Goodreads review by michal on August 18, 2021

love watching Ashbery play the minor scales at rapid speeds. pretty unfair to lesser poets, calling these unfinished works......more