Something Close to Music

An intimate and unique collection of the work of John Ashberya prolific poet and art criticpairing poetry and art writings with playlists of music from his personal library. This book places poetry by Ashbery (19272017), 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 offer representative samplings of music from these same years, culled from Ashberys own library of recordings. Ashberys poetry is frequently described as ekphrastic, though, rather than writing a poem based on'' or inspired by the content of an artwork of 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 of the observations from Ashberys art writing also offer keys to how we might read his poetry. Many of the recordings he listened to feature contemporary classical works that emphasize complex textures, disparate sounds, and disjunct phrases. Ashberys 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.