SOURCE: "John Ashbery and Frank O'Hara: The Painterly Poets," in Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. X, No. 3, September, 1976, pp. 436-72.

In the following excerpt, Moramarco discusses the poetry of John Ashbery and Frank O'Hara in light of the Abstract Expressionist movement in American painting

"Insight, if it is occasional, functions critically; if it is casual, insight functions creatively."

Frank O'Hara, Jackson Pollock

The title poem in John Ashbery's new collection, Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror, begins with a precise de scription of the remarkable painting by Parmigianino which inspired it. Looking at the poem and painting together,¹ one is struck by Ashbery's unique ability to explore the verbal implications of painterly space, to capture the verbal nuances of Parmigianino's fixed and distorted image. The poem virtually resonates or extends the painting's meaning. It transforms visual impact to verbal precision. I am reminded of an antithetical statement by...