The Songs We Know Best: John Ashbery's Early Life

The first comprehensive biography of the early life of John Ashbery - by common consensus the dominant poet of our time. In chronicling the twenty-eight years that led up to Ashbery's stunning debut, Some Trees - chosen by W.H. Auden as the winner of the 1955 Yale Younger Poets prize - Karin Roffman shows how Ashbery's poetry, paradoxical and utterly new, arose from his early experiences, both on the family farm and in 1950s New York City.