The Songs We Know Best: John Ashbery's Early Life

by Karin Roffman

Overview

The first biography of an American master

The Songs We Know Best, the first comprehensive biography of the early life of John Ashbery—the winner of nearly every major American literary award—reveals the unusual ways he drew on the details of his youth to populate the poems that made him one of the most original and unpredictable forces of the last century in arts and letters.

Drawing on unpublished correspondence, juvenilia, and childhood diaries as well as more than one hundred hours of conversation with the poet, Karin Roffman offers an insightful portrayal of Ashbery during the twenty-eight years that led up to his stunning debut, Some Trees, chosen by W. H. Auden for the 1955 Yale Younger Poets Prize. Roffman shows how Ashbery’s poetry arose from his early lessons both on the family farm and in 1950s New York City—a bohemian existence that teemed with artistic fervor and radical innovations inspired by Dada and surrealism as well as lifelong friendships with painters and writers such as Frank O’Hara, Jane Freilicher, Nell Blaine, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler, and Willem de Kooning.

Ashbery has a reputation for being enigmatic and playfully elusive, but Roffman’s biography reveals his deft mining of his early life for the flint and tinder from which his provocative later poems grew, producing a body of work that he calls “the experience of experience,” an intertwining of life and art in extraordinarily intimate ways.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374537876
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	06/12/2018
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Karin Roffman has taught literature at Yale, West Point, and Bard, and is the author of From the Modernist Annex. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

"My Grand Party" 3

1 "The Pleasant Early Years" (1927-1935) 7

2 Blue Mountain (1936-1940) 33

3 Quiz Kid (1940-1941) 57

4 The Art of Self-Education (1942-1943) 81

5 Self-Portrait at Deerfield (1943-1945) 103

6 "Undergraduate Reflections" (1945-1947) 131

7 "Some Trees" (1947-1949) 155

8 "Darkness Falls like a Wet Sponge" (1949-1951) 181

9 "Greetings, Friends!" (1951-1953) 201

10 "What More Is There to Do, Except Stay? And That We Cannot Do" (1954-1955) 223

Notes 247

Selected Bibliography 291

Acknowledgments 299

Index 303

Editorial Reviews

New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

"Roffman opens a welcoming doorway into this poet’s life and work with her engaging, in-depth biography of Ashbery’s early life...She is able to provide a remarkable quantity of detail—not merely the external facts, but also the internal thoughts and struggles of the artist as a young man...With its sharp, informed and unsentimental insight into both the man and his work, The Songs We Know Best is an invaluable biography of a masterful artist." —Robert Weibezahl, BookPage

"The Songs We Know Best offers clues that help to 'stretch poetry rather than level it', to borrow again from Ashbery. It is fascinating for the stories it uncovers and the material it presents." —Times Literary Supplement

"Rigorously intimate...This tender, youth-focused biography will be most enjoyed by Ashbery’s fans and readers interested in a remarkable gay artist’s midcentury coming-of-age story." —Booklist

"This incisive, groundbreaking portrait of the enigmatic and influential poet will be indispensable to all future biographical work." —Kirkus, starred review

"Concise and excellent...Roffman, a sensitive reader of Ashbery’s poetry, explores the roots of Some Trees and much of his subsequent work...The Songs We Know Best hits a high note when Ashbery moves to New York City in 1949 and finally finds his seat at the moveable feast of art, poetry, love, and friendship...Stick with Roffman as she puts the finishing touches on her portrait of the poet." —4Columns

"By far the most thorough and reliable account of a formative period in the biography of one of our greatest and most mysterious writers...The Songs We Know Best lets us see, clearer than ever before, how the poet’s mind works, and how it developed." —The New Republic

"Readers of Ashbery's work will enjoy Roffman's deep insight into the poet." —Library Journal

"With immaculate detail and eloquence...Roffman excels in her recreation of Ashbery’s early years because she does not waver from firsthand sources and never attempts to interpret his life or poetry through pure speculation...An educational, comforting, inspiring book that will satisfy Ashbery’s curious fans." —Publisher's Weekly

From the Publisher

Roffman's decision to focus solely on Ashbery's youth pays off…because this crucial period of Ashbery's life has been little explored or understood, and because she manages to fill in the familiar but vague outlines with such rich and fascinating detail gleaned from exhaustive research—especially her deep dive into unpublished early poems, newly uncovered diaries and extensive interviews with Ashbery himself. The result is a treasure trove for scholars, fans and casual readers alike. Ashbery may humbly profess that his own experiences can't possibly be of interest, but they are interesting, especially in Roffman's deft telling. Like a classic bildungsroman, The Songs We Know Best tells the story of a shy, sensitive, preternaturally gifted boy who weathers a lonely childhood on a farm, awakens to the joys and mysteries of art, poetry and sex as a teenager, and finally assumes his true vocation as a poet when he arrives in the big city and falls in with a circle of revolutionary writers and artists. It is also an affecting narrative about growing up gay in a virulently hostile, intolerant culture—a moving portrait of an artist who not only survived that ordeal as a young man but became, improbably enough, one of the greatest poets of his age.

The New York Times Book Review - Andrew Epstein

04/03/2017
With immaculate detail and eloquence, Roffman (From the Modernist Annex) has written the first in-depth biography of one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. Her narrative follows Ashbery, who was born in 1927, up to 1955, when W.H. Auden awarded Ashbery's debut collection, Some Trees, the Yale Younger Poets prize. Roffman expertly analyzes his poems, revealing the nuanced imprint of his personal life on his work. She explores Ashbery's friendships (with painter Jane Freilicher and poets Frank O'Hara and Kenneth Koch, among others), his influences (including W.H. Auden and Marianne Moore), and his ventures into acting, prose writing, and painting. In addition to describing his triumphs, she reveals the darker parts of Ashbery's life: the childhood death of his brother, the specter cast by his era's homophobia, and his ongoing battle with depression. Roffman excels in her recreation of Ashbery's early years because she does not waver from firsthand sources and never attempts to interpret his life or poetry through pure speculation. Although at times this work is slow going and lacking in drama, it is an educational, comforting, inspiring book that will satisfy Ashbery's curious fans. 82 b&w illus. (June)

Publishers Weekly

05/15/2017
In Roffman's (From the Modernist Annex) comprehensive biography of John Ashbery, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet (for the collection Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror), readers get a view of the author through childhood to early adulthood for the first time. The 89-year-old Ashbery has been writing all of his life, and many of his poems and diary entries are included in this volume. There is some literary analysis done by the Roffman, but most of the work concentrates on the meanings behind the poems. Ashbery drew inspiration from his experiences, specifically the untimely death of his brother and the loss of relationships. Despite these tragic instances, he is known for his wit, focus, and self-awareness. Ashbery's career almost ended before it began though, when a supposed friend plagiarized his work and published it under a different name. Luckily for his readers, Ashbery persisted and became a literary legend. VERDICT Readers of Ashbery's work will enjoy Roffman's deep insight into the poet. Pictures throughout offer visuals of the people and places that shaped Ashbery's writing.—Natalie Browning, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community Coll. Lib., Richmond, VA

Library Journal

★ 2017-04-02
The first "comprehensive" biography of the American poet's early years.Roffman (Humanities/Yale Univ.; From the Modernist Annex: American Women Writers in Museums and Libraries, 2010) met Pulitzer Prize-winning poet John Ashbery (b. 1929) in 2005 at Bard College, and they immediately hit it off. The "vehemently private" poet provided her with an early diary and handwritten and typed manuscripts of poetry, plays, and stories, as well as numerous photographs (included here along with many poems). All of this material, writes Roffman, provides "astonishing record of his earliest creative life." When the author asked if she could write a biography of these early years, he assumed she "already was." Roffman delivers a revealing, unprecedented portrait of this artist up to the publication of Some Trees in 1956, which won the Yale Younger Poets Prize, selected by W.H. Auden, narrowly beating out Ashbery's close friend Frank O'Hara. Born in Rochester, New York, he spent time on the family's farm and in his beloved grandparents' home overlooking Lake Ontario. His youth was "ordinary," and he loved to paint, write, and read. He wrote his first poem at age 8 and read an article about surrealism and Dada in Life that "thrilled him." As early as kindergarten, Ashbery felt attracted to boys but kept his feelings secret. In 1941, he appeared on the national Quiz Kids show in Chicago. After attending Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, he went to Harvard. At the time, he said, "I suppose I'll come out of it intact." Midway through his college career, Ashbery had ambitious plans to "rip modern poetry wide open!" At Harvard, he met poets O'Hara and Kenneth Koch and immersed himself in the poetry of Wallace Stevens and Marianne Moore. Next came Columbia University and a new, lifelong friend in fellow gay poet/collaborator James Schuyler. This incisive, groundbreaking portrait of the enigmatic and influential poet will be indispensable to all future biographical work.

Kirkus Reviews