Parallel Movement of the Hands: Five Unfinished Longer Works

Renowned for his inventive mind, ambitious play with language, and dexterity with a wide range of tones and styles, John Ashbery has been a major figure in the cultural life of our time. Parallel Movement of the Hands gathers unpublished book-length projects and long poems written between 1993 and 2007, along with one (as yet) undated work, to showcase Ashbery's diverse and multifaceted artistic obsessions and sources, from children's literature, cliffhanger cinema reels, and silent films to classical music variations by Beethoven's pupil Carl Czerny and the history of early photography.

Edited and introduced by Ashbery's former assistant, poet Emily Skillings, and including a foreword by acclaimed writer Ben Lerner, this compelling and varied collection offers new insights into the process and creative interests of a poet whose work continues to influence generations of readers and artists with its signature intertextuality, openness,a nd simultaneity.