John Ashbery

American poet and professor, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry among other prestigious awards.

Ashbery wrote over 20 books of poetry. His first collection, "Some Trees" won a Yale Younger Poets Prize in 1956. His "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" (1975), received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the National Book Award. In addition to his poetry, he wrote a book of art criticism, a collection of plays; and a novel, A Nest of Ninnies (1969). He was co-editor of the 1988 edition of "The Best American Poetry."

The first English-language poet to win the Grand Prix de Biennales Internationales de Poésie (Brussels) he also received the Bollingen Prize among many other grants, fellowships and awards.

Ashbery graduated with honours from Harvard University in 1949. There he had been on the staff of the Harvard Advocate, a university literary magazine, and a member of the Signet Society. He had been heavily influenced by W. H. Auden and wrote his senior thesis on the poet. He subsequently received an M.A. from Columbia in 1951. Shortly afterwards he went to France on a Fulbright Fellowship and stayed there until 1965, serving as the art editor for the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune. During this period, Ashbery lived together with poet Pierre Martory for nine years, inspiring and influencing each other’s work.

Upon his return to the USA he worked as an art critic for Newsweek and New York magazines. In addition to writing volumes of poetry, he served as editor of the Partisan Review until 1980. He was hired by Brooklyn College in the early 1970s; by the next decade he was employed by Bard College as the Charles P. Stevenson, Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature. From 2001-2003 he was appointed New York state's poet laureate. He served as Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets.

Ashbery died on 3 September 2017 at his home in Hudson, New York of natural causes at the age of 90.