John Ashbery

John Ashbery won the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. The same book also won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The title poem responds to a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Parmigianino. Ashbery uses the artwork to explore perception, selfhood, time, and the instability of thought.

Yes. Ashbery is associated with the New York School alongside poets such as Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, and Barbara Guest. Their work often overlapped with painting, urban life, and conversational experimentation.

Ashbery's poems often shift tone, subject, and logic without clear explanation. Instead of a single argument, a poem may mimic the movement of consciousness, conversation, or radio-like fragments.