And the Stars Were Shining

Witty yet heartbreaking, conversational yet richly lyrical, John Ashbery’s sixteenth poetry collection showcases a mastery uniquely his own And the Stars Were Shining originally appeared in 1994, toward the midpoint of a startlingly creative period in Ashbery’s long career, during which the great American poet published no fewer than nine books in ten years. The collection brings together more than fifty compact, jewellike, intensely felt poems, including the well-known “Like a Sentence” (“How l