Critical Mass

John Ashbery, at NBCC Awards Ceremony, Coming up at Paris Review Revel

By Jane Ciabattari


John Ashbery, winner of the first National Book Critics Circle award in poetry in 1975, was center stage at The New School at this year’s NBCC awards finalists’ reading, reading from “The Landscapist,” the Pierre Martory collection he translated. “The Landscapist” was a finalist for this year’s NBCC poetry award. Ashbery also was on hand the following night at the awards ceremony (he’s pictured here with fellow NBCC finalist Honor Moore).

Ashbery will be honored Monday night with the Hadada Award at the annual Paris Review Spring Revel. Paul Muldoon will interview Ashbery on stage at the event. The new issue of Paris Review has some new Ashbery poems, and also …collages! He has been making collages off and on since his student days at Harvard. “Collage is an art of time, like poetry,” notes Dan Chiassen in introducing the set, most made since 2008.

Photo by Miriam Berkley