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Something Close to Music: Late Art Writings, Poems, and Playlists
An intimate and unique collection of the work of John Ashbery—a prolific poet and art critic—pairing poetry and art writings with playlists of music from his personal library.
This book places poetry by Ashbery (1927–2017), gathered from his later collections, in conversation with a selection of contemporaneous art writing. In addition, as Ashbery loved music and listened to it while writing, the “playlists” here present samplings of music from these same years, culled from his own library of recordings.
Ashbery’s poetry is frequently described as ekphrastic, though, rather than writing a poem “based on” or “inspired” by the content of an artwork or piece of music, he engages with how the experience of seeing it and the artistic strategies employed offer ways of thinking about it and through it. Many observations from Ashbery’s art writing also provide keys to how we might read his poetry. Many recordings he listened to feature contemporary classical works that emphasize complex textures, disparate sounds, and disjunct phrases. Ashbery’s poetry similarly plays with a diversity of poetic textures and sudden turns such that a reader might construct multiple narratives or pathways of meaning. He rarely offers linear stories or focuses on evocative descriptions of a scene or object.
In exploring this ekphrastic book project, the reader is invited to discover how, for Ashbery, these three forms might illuminate and inform one another. In Mónica de la Torre’s introduction, she explores the connection between the three muses of music, art, and poetry, and the ekphrastic experience of reading Ashbery.
This book places poetry by Ashbery (1927–2017), gathered from his later collections, in conversation with a selection of contemporaneous art writing. In addition, as Ashbery loved music and listened to it while writing, the “playlists” here present samplings of music from these same years, culled from his own library of recordings.
Ashbery’s poetry is frequently described as ekphrastic, though, rather than writing a poem “based on” or “inspired” by the content of an artwork or piece of music, he engages with how the experience of seeing it and the artistic strategies employed offer ways of thinking about it and through it. Many observations from Ashbery’s art writing also provide keys to how we might read his poetry. Many recordings he listened to feature contemporary classical works that emphasize complex textures, disparate sounds, and disjunct phrases. Ashbery’s poetry similarly plays with a diversity of poetic textures and sudden turns such that a reader might construct multiple narratives or pathways of meaning. He rarely offers linear stories or focuses on evocative descriptions of a scene or object.
In exploring this ekphrastic book project, the reader is invited to discover how, for Ashbery, these three forms might illuminate and inform one another. In Mónica de la Torre’s introduction, she explores the connection between the three muses of music, art, and poetry, and the ekphrastic experience of reading Ashbery.
184 pages, Paperback
Published June 7, 2022
14 people are currently reading
239 people want to read
About the author
John Ashbery
290 books479 followersFormal experimentation and connection to visual art of noted American poet John Ashbery of the original writers of New York School won a Pulitzer Prize for
Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror
(1975).
From Harvard and Columbia, John Ashbery earned degrees, and he traveled of James William Fulbright to France in 1955. He published more than twenty best known collections, most recently A Worldly Country (2007). Wystan Hugh Auden selected early Some Trees for the younger series of Elihu Yale, and he later obtained the major national book award and the critics circle. He served as executive editor of Art News and as the critic for magazine and Newsweek. A member of the academies of letters and sciences, he served as chancellor from 1988 to 1999. He received many awards internationally and fellowships of John Simon Guggenheim and John Donald MacArthur from 1985 to 1990. People translated his work into more than twenty languages. He lived and from 1990 served as the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. professor of languages and literature at Bard college.
From Harvard and Columbia, John Ashbery earned degrees, and he traveled of James William Fulbright to France in 1955. He published more than twenty best known collections, most recently A Worldly Country (2007). Wystan Hugh Auden selected early Some Trees for the younger series of Elihu Yale, and he later obtained the major national book award and the critics circle. He served as executive editor of Art News and as the critic for magazine and Newsweek. A member of the academies of letters and sciences, he served as chancellor from 1988 to 1999. He received many awards internationally and fellowships of John Simon Guggenheim and John Donald MacArthur from 1985 to 1990. People translated his work into more than twenty languages. He lived and from 1990 served as the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. professor of languages and literature at Bard college.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 17, 2025
I prefer the poems to the art essays, specifically "From Estuaries, from Casinos", "The Improvement" and "Wakefulness." Some of the poetry lines really gut you. I think because they are unexpected in the collage of surrealist disjunct elements.
"Who asks anything of me?
I am available, my heart pinned in a trance"
"I want the openness of the dream turned inside out, exploded
into pieces of meaning by its own unasked questions,
beyond the calculations of heaven."
"Who asks anything of me?
I am available, my heart pinned in a trance"
"I want the openness of the dream turned inside out, exploded
into pieces of meaning by its own unasked questions,
beyond the calculations of heaven."
May 8, 2025
His poetry is somewhat abstract, but is so specifically evocative that one often questions how he is even left with the feelings he finds himself with
His poems are not indescribable so much as they are fluid; it would take a great deal of energy to articulate what specifically he evokes each time, energy that is arguably better spent simply appreciating the tenderness of the experience
I read these poems in times of great exhaustion. They did not demand much more from me than my attention, yet they leave me with a renewed passion for life in its entirety
10/10
His poems are not indescribable so much as they are fluid; it would take a great deal of energy to articulate what specifically he evokes each time, energy that is arguably better spent simply appreciating the tenderness of the experience
I read these poems in times of great exhaustion. They did not demand much more from me than my attention, yet they leave me with a renewed passion for life in its entirety
10/10
December 1, 2024
What does this particular mess
have to do with me, surely
one or more have wondered. And if he
or she suddenly saw in retrospect
the victimhood of all those years, how pain
was as reversible as pleasure, would they stand
for nothing
have to do with me, surely
one or more have wondered. And if he
or she suddenly saw in retrospect
the victimhood of all those years, how pain
was as reversible as pleasure, would they stand
for nothing
July 3, 2024
The poetry included is some of the strongest late work from Ashbery, but the real treat are the curated playlists he made
November 6, 2022
Read my review here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/tosh/p/...
https://open.substack.com/pub/tosh/p/...
February 27, 2024
“All comic strips have something dreamlike about them. Like dreams, they recur over and over; the paper will be back next Sunday, and dreams will soon be with us again, no matter how enchanted or scared we were left by the last ones.” – John Ashbery
In this I also learnt that Picasso asked Gertrude Stein to save him all the comics from American newspapers she read. What a cutie.
This book had some of the most thought provokingly concise excerpts of writing I’ve read to date. I will be looking further into Ashbery’s work and seeking more books from the Ekphrasis series.
In this I also learnt that Picasso asked Gertrude Stein to save him all the comics from American newspapers she read. What a cutie.
This book had some of the most thought provokingly concise excerpts of writing I’ve read to date. I will be looking further into Ashbery’s work and seeking more books from the Ekphrasis series.
October 27, 2024
I found this difficult to interpret at times. Ashbery's poetry is such a literary mirror of the AbEx work he criticised - meaning isn't the focus, it's the conveyance of feeling in the form. but the circulating language and images don't have any reality or refer to anything. kind of Baudrillardian. I loved the excerpt from flow chart: part II.
7/10
7/10
May 2, 2023
“Everything is like something else.
I should have waited before
I learned this.”
I should have waited before
I learned this.”
May 24, 2024
so beautiful
July 1, 2024
Absolutely lovely. The format is fantastic. Rarely is the reader able to get a glimpse and the writer’s process, much less their inspirational playlists! Read with Spotify (or similar) handy!
March 29, 2025
FANTASTIC!
July 17, 2022
Panhandling for meaning and observation in the mysterious, beautiful waters of Ashbery’s writing—I can think of no better way to spend my time.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews