Years of Indiscretion

Category: Books,Arts & Photography

Years of Indiscretion Details

artists hand-made book with 23 poems by John Ashbery, 10 etchings by Tom Levine and foreword by Patti Smith.Limited edition of 160 copies Read more

Reviews

Yes, this book is expensive and minimally available - it is a limited edition of only 160 copies, but it is a work of art that should be at least examined in a museum or a library as it approaches perfection in the combination of words and images. This slip-cased book is produced on the finest paper and houses twenty-three poems by John Ashbery and ten etchings by Tom Levine. This is collaboration at its finest.For those unfamiliar, `John Ashbery is an American poet who has published more than twenty volumes of poetry and won nearly every major American award for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize in 1976 for his collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. Renowned for its postmodern complexity and opacity, Ashbery's work still proves controversial. Ashbery has stated that he wishes his work to be accessible to as many people as possible, and not to be a private dialogue with himself. At the same time, he once joked that some critics still view him as "a harebrained, homegrown surrealist whose poetry defies even the rules and logic of Surrealism." His works are characterized by a free-flowing, often disjunctive syntax; extensive linguistic play, often infused with considerable humor; and a prosaic, sometimes disarmingly flat or parodic tone. The play of the human mind is the subject of a great many of his poems. Ashbery once said that his goal was "to produce a poem that the critic cannot even talk about."Here Ashbery's poems in collaboration with Levine's etchings are in the codex form: as you move from poem to etching (they are never visible simultaneously) the viewer's attention to one is heightened by the other. All of this and more is explained in the Foreword by Patti Smith. This is book as art as experience. A little miracle of a work. Grady Harp, June 12