Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

John Ashbery (1927–2017) was an American poet widely considered the most influential American poet of the second half of the twentieth century. Born in Rochester, New York, he studied at Harvard and Columbia and spent many years in France. His 1975 collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award—one of only a handful of collections ever to win all three major American poetry prizes in the same year. Read more →