Selected Poems
"Selected Poems" draws on John Ash's four acclaimed collections and is virtually a Collected Poems. "A little querulous, perhaps?" Carolyn Kizer asked in the New York Times Book Review. "Never mind. This may be the most auspicious debut of its kind since Auden's".
Writing of his fourth collection in the same review, Richard Tillinghast said: "John Ash is a greatly gifted poet who moves easily from the hieratic to the demotic". And John Ashbery has spoken of his poetry as "resonant with gorgeous imagery that distracts one from the super-lucid, rational argument that quietly continues to assert itself. It seems both familiar and strange, noble and
funny, romantic and level-headed". Among contemporary British poets he is distinguished for his wit, his formal and thematic ambition, and his Byzantine range.
Writing of his fourth collection in the same review, Richard Tillinghast said: "John Ash is a greatly gifted poet who moves easily from the hieratic to the demotic". And John Ashbery has spoken of his poetry as "resonant with gorgeous imagery that distracts one from the super-lucid, rational argument that quietly continues to assert itself. It seems both familiar and strange, noble and
funny, romantic and level-headed". Among contemporary British poets he is distinguished for his wit, his formal and thematic ambition, and his Byzantine range.
About the author
John Ash was born in Manchester in 1948 and read English at the University of Birmingham. He lived for a year in Cyprus, and in Manchester between 1970 and 1985, before moving to New York. Since 1996 he has lived in Istanbul. His poetry has appeared in many publications including the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Village Voice, Oasis, PN Review and Paris Review. Two of his Carcanet collections, "The Goodbyes" (1982) and "Disbelief" (1987) were Poetry Book Society Choices. He has also written two books about Turkey, "A Byzantine Journey" and "Turkey: The Other Guide".