Other traditions Book

One of the greatest living poets in English here explores the work of six writers he often finds himself reading in order to get started when writing, poets he turns to as a poetic jump-start for times when the batteries have run down. Among those whom John Ashbery reads at such times are John Clare, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Raymond Roussel, John Wheelright, Laura Riding and David Schubert. Less familiar than some, under Ashbery's scrutiny these poets emerge as the powerful but private and somewhat wild voices whose eccentricity has kept them from the mainstream - and whose vision merits Ashbery's efforts, and our own, to read them well.