John Ashbery

John Ashbery (1927–2017) was an influential American poet known for the elegance, originality, and obscurity of his postmodern poetry, which often explores perception and the interplay between art and reality. He published over 20 volumes of poetry and received major awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975). In 2007, he became the first living poet anthologized by the Library of America.