The Painter

“These Lacustrine Cities” by John Ashbery (1966)

Although published only a decade later and still relatively early in Ashbery’s poetic career, “These Lacustrine Cities” stands as a masterwork of Ashbery’s indeterminate, abstract linguistic style. If “The Painter” is a straightforward parable describing Ashbery’s aesthetics, “These Lacustrine Cities” are those aesthetics in action. Ashbery published tens of books over the course of his career, and this poem hails from only his third: Rivers and Mountains. However, the strategies on display in the text are used by Ashbery throughout the entirety of his literary practice.

“To a Reason” by Arthur Rimbaud (1886), translated by John Ashbery (2011)

Published as part of Ashbery’s translation of French poet Arthur Rimbaud’s singular masterpiece Illuminations, “To a Reason” is an example of both the poetry that inspired Ashbery and Ashbery’s own poetics in his translation. This poem, hosted by Poetry magazine, also links to a long essay Ashbery wrote about his process and theory of translating the Rimbaud text.

“The Shield of Achilles” by W. H. Auden (1952)

One of Auden’s most famous poems, “The Shield of Achilles” demonstrates the precise, metric Modernism of Auden’s style. The poem’s interest in mythology and the minutiae of the Western literary canon are exemplary of Auden’s thematic concerns, and its clarity shows the dominant poetic style into which Ashbery was born.