SOURCE: "Ashbery: Poet for All Seasons," in Raritan, Vol. 15, No. 2, Fall, 1995, pp. 144-61.

In the following review, Meyer provides critical analysis of Hotel Lautréamont and And the Stars Were Shining.

For upwards of two decades now, since the acclaim that greeted his 1975 collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, John Ashbery has been the United States' preeminent poet, with books selling in the tens of thousands, both at home and abroad. In a recent issue of the British journal PN Review, two dozen poets and critics set out to "appraise the mark this American writer" has made and continues to make in Britain—a mark, we are told, that differs appreciably from his influence in the United States. Among the sources of Ashbery's widespread popularity is a feature of his work that he does not share with other contemporary writers and which might therefore account for some of...