The bibliography of John Ashbery includes poetry, literary criticism, art criticism, journalism, drama, fiction, and translations of verse and prose. His most significant body of work is in poetry, having published numerous poetry collections, book-length poems, and limited edition chapbooks. In his capacity as a journalist and art critic, he contributed to magazines like New York and Newsweek. He served for a time as the editor of Art and Literature: an International Review and as executive editor of Art News. In drama and fiction, he wrote five plays and cowrote the novel A Nest of Ninnies with James Schuyler. Beyond his original works, he translated verse and prose from French. Many of his works of poetry, prose, drama, and translations have been compiled in volumes of collected writings.
Books Verse Ashbery published 26 books of poetry (not including his limited edition books, listed below). Most of them are poetry collections, which typically contain a mix of new and previously published poems. Flow Chart and Girls on the Run are book-length long poems.
Year Title Publisher First editioncatalog no. Notes 1956
Yale Series of Younger Poets, volume 52. With a foreword by W. H. Auden. 1962
1966
1970
1972
Prose poetry. 1975
Illustrations by Joe Brainard. 1975
1977
1979
1981
1984
1987
1991
Long poem. 1992
1994
1995
1998
1999
Long poem. 2000
2002 Chinese Whispers
2005 Where Shall I Wander
2007 A Worldly Country
2009 Planisphere
2012 Quick Question
2015 Breezeway
2016 Commotion of the Birds
Translated verse Year Title Original author Publisher ISBN 2008
2011
Limited edition The first edition of these works were printed in a limited edition. They are often printed as chapbooks, with each copy numbered and with a set number of signed copies. Many of these books are collaborations with visual artists or other poets. The contents of these books often share significant overlap with Ashbery's poetry collections; for example, Turandot and Other Poems overlaps significantly with Some Trees.
Year Title Publisher First editioncatalog no. Notes 1953
Includes illustrations by Jane Freilicher. Published as a chapbook. Although it was published before Some Trees, most of its poems were also collected in that book, which is regarded as the first (or first "major") volume of Ashbery's poetry. Limited edition of 300 copies. 1960
Includes prints by Joan Mitchell. Limited edition of 225 copies; 25 are numbered, 200 are signed. 1968
Chapbook containing the poem of the same name. Limited edition of 126 copies. 1968
Chapbook containing the poem of the same name. Published by Diane di Prima's Poets Press. The poem is reproduced as a facsimile (copy) of Ashbery's handwritten original, which includes several drawings. Limited edition of 162 copies. 1969
Chapbook containing the poem of the same name. Limited edition of 1,020 copies. 1970
Chapbook containing the poem of the same name. 1970
Chapbook containing the poem of the same name. Limited edition of 65 copies. 1975
Chapbook containing the poem of the same name. Limited, numbered, and signed edition of 50 copies. 1975
Two special first editions: Signed and numbered edition of 250 copies Signed and lettered edition of 26 copies, each with an original ink drawing by Joe Brainard 1981
Galway Kinnell, W. S. Merwin, Liz Rosenberg, Dave Smith. Limited edition of 300 copies, signed by all five authors. 1984
Fine art edition containing the poem of the same name. Packaged in a stainless steel film canister. Contains a new foreword by Ashbery; a 12-inch vinyl record with a recording of Ashbery reading the poem; an essay by Helen Vendler; original prints by Richard Avedon, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Kooning, Jim Dine, Jane Freilicher, Alex Katz, R. B. Kitaj, and Larry Rivers. Limited edition of 175 copies. 1984
Chapbook containing the poem of the same name. 1987
Chapbook containing the poem of the same name. 1990
Chapbook containing the six haibun poems from A Wave. Illustrations by Judith Shea. 1991
Fine art edition containing excerpts from the poem "Dreams of Adulthood", which was originally published. Includes illustrations by Eric Stotik. Limited, numbered edition of 50 copies, signed by Ashbery and Stotik. 1998
Contains the poem of the same name. Includes illustrations by Jane Freilicher. Limited, numbered edition of 300 copies. 1998
Contains the poem of the same name, written in 1954 but previously unpublished. Includes illustrations by Trevor Winkfield. Limited, numbered edition of 100 copies, plus 15 artists' proofs; all copies signed by Ashbery and Winkfield.; . 1999
Chapbook containing the poem of the same name. Illustrated by Elizabeth Murray. Limited edition chapbook of 200 copies, with 26 copies lettered A to Z signed by the poet and the artist with an original print by Elizabeth Murray. 2001
Reprint of a poem first published in the January 1970 issue of the journal Adventures in Poetry. Limited edition of 500 copies. 2001
Dust jacket art by Tom Burckhard. Limited edition in two runs: 100 numbered copies signed by Ashbery and Burckhard, and 900 unnumbered unsigned copies.; 1999
Contains the prose poem of the same name (originally published in Three Poems). Bilingual edition in English and French. Translation by Franck André Jamme. Illustrated by Hanns Schimansky. Limited edition chapbook of 40 copies.
Prose Year Title Publisher First editioncatalog no. Notes 1969
A novel written in collaboration with James Schuyler. New edition by Dalkey Archive Press in 2008 (). 2000 Other Traditions
A book of literacy criticism about six writers who Ashbery turns to for inspiration: John Clare, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Raymond Roussel, John Wheelwright, Laura Riding, and David Schubert.
Compiled works Collected verse Year Title Publisher First editioncatalog no. Notes 1967 Selected Poems
Contains selected poems from: Some Trees The Tennis Court Oath Rivers and Mountains 1985 Selected Poems
Contains selected poems from: Some Trees The Tennis Court Oath Rivers and Mountains The Double Dream of Spring Three Poems Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror Houseboat Days As We Know Shadow Train A Wave 1993 Three Books
Collects all poems from Houseboat Days, Shadow Train, and A Wave. 1997
Contains: Some Trees The Tennis Court Oath Rivers and Mountains The Double Dream of Spring Three Poems 2007 Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems
Contains selected poems and excerpts from: April Galleons Flow Chart (excerpted) Hotel Lautréamont And the Stars Were Shining Can You Hear, Bird Wakefulness Girls on the Run (excerpted) Your Name Here As Umbrellas Follow Rain Chinese Whispers Where Shall I Wander 2008 Collected Poems 1956–1987
Library of America series, volume 187. Edited by Mark Ford. Contains all poems from Some Trees, The Tennis Court Oath, Rivers and Mountains, The Double Dream of Spring, Three Poems, The Vermont Notebook, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, Houseboat Days, As We Know, Shadow Train, A Wave, and April Galleons, as well as previously uncollected poems. 2014 Collected French Translations: Poetry
Edited by Rosanne Wasserman and Eugene Richie. 2017 Collected Poems 1991–2000
Library of America series, volume 301. Edited by Mark Ford; chronology by Mark Ford and David Kermani. Contains all poems from Flow Chart, Hotel Lautréamont, And the Stars Were Shining, Can You Hear, Bird, Wakefulness, Girls on the Run, and Your Name Here, as well as previously uncollected poems. 2018 They Knew What They Wanted: Poems and Collages
Edited by Mark Polizzotti. Preface by Polizzotti, introduction and an interview with Ashbery by John Yau. Includes a selection of Ashbery's collages, several previously published poems, and a poem that had only been published once before in Karin Roffman's biography The Songs We Know Best: John Ashbery's Early Life(2017). It is Ashbery's first posthumous book—though, according to Polizzotti's preface, it was "for all intents and purposes finished before his passing".
Collected prose or drama Year Title Publisher First editioncatalog no. Notes 1978 Three Plays
Contains the plays The Compromise, The Heroes, and The Philosophers. 1989 Reported Sightings: Art Chronicles 1957–1987
Edited by David Bergman. Contains selected articles of art criticism and journalism. 2005 Selected Prose 1953–2003
Edited by Eugene Richie. 2014 Collected French Translations: Prose
Edited by Rosanne Wasserman and Eugene Richie.
Plays Year Work Notes 1950
Included in Three Plays. Written in 1950; first staged by the Living Theatre in 1952. 1955
Included in Three Plays. Written in 1955; first staged by the Poets Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1956. The text of the play includes Ashbery's poem "America". The Compromise was published in the one-shot review The Hasty Papers(1960), edited by Alfred Leslie. 1956
Four scenes from the play were published in two issues of Semi-Colon; otherwise unpublished. 1959
Included in Three Plays. 1960 To the Mill A short verse play. First published in Alfred Leslie's one-shot review The Hasty Papers(1960).; .
Journalism Asbery wrote numerous journalistic articles—mostly art criticism—in the International Herald Tribune, New York magazine, Newsweek, and other periodicals. Ashbery also edited the periodicals Art and Literature: An International Review and Art News.
Interviews Ashbery has been the interviewee in numerous published interviews. There has been one book-length interview published to date: John Ashbery in Conversation with Mark Ford. Only interviews published in books are listed here, not interviews published in periodicals or websites.
Year Title Interviewer Publisher ISBN Notes 2003
Book-length interview. 2013
Interview with Ashbery at pp. 53–78.
Academic theses Year Title Notes 1949
For his B.A. at Harvard University. About the English-American poet W. H. Auden. 1951
For his M.A. at Columbia University. About the English author Henry Green's novels Living (1929), Party Going (1939), and Concluding (1948).
Further reading In 1976, Ashbery's partner David Kermani published a comprehensive 244-page bibliography compiling the author's then-published works.
The Ashbery Resource Center maintains a searchable online bibliography. Beyond Ashbery's works, the site also catalogs numerous other works not included here, such as publications of his works in translation and works about Ashbery to which he did not contribute. Like the 1976 bibliography, this online bibliography is overseen by Kermani.
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