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In Ashbery's 1987 collection, ballads, folklore, and fairy tales mesh with the anxieties and idioms of modern life For a book by one of the leading avant-garde poets of modern literature, John Ashbery's April Galleons is suffused with voices from the past. There are echoes of the Romantics in the elegiac "A Mood of Quiet Beauty" and "Vetiver," allusions to ballads and folkloric epics in "Finnish Rhapsody" and "Forgotten Song," and veiled references to legends, folk songs, and fairy tales. But as always with Ashbery, the modern world is the microphone through which these past voices are made to speak, amplified and invigorated by Ashbery's signature wit and generosity of spirit. A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in the year in which it was first published, April Galleons is a must-read collection from a notable period in John Ashbery's long and lauded career.
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Reviews
"One of America's finest and most challenging poets is refusing to become a classic, is still growing, changing, and demanding that we as readers grow as well."
Vernon Shetley, Poetry
"His skill and cleverness (and something more) are such that he makes the reader appreciate, if not the waters, then at least the navigator's talents. How can you not like a gifted poet who wants you to have a good time sliding around on his deliberately slicked decks?"
Calvin Bedient, Los Angeles Times
"Reaches out toward greatness . . . It is Mr. Ashbery who has again given poets permission to be gorgeous."
Calvin Bedient, Los Angeles Times