John Ashbery: A Life of Poetry with Karin Roffman

A conversation with Karin Roffman at the American Library in Paris. Filmed on 17/10/2023 with a live audience both in person and on Zoom.

John Ashbery, one of the most celebrated poets of American history, is revealed in a never-before-seen light. Discover where life and poetry intertwine with historian Karin Roffman.

John Ashbery, one of the most renowned American poets of all time, was celebrated for his avant-garde and often surrealistic approach to poetry. Who was the master behind the pen, and how did his life influence his work? Through interviews with Ashbery, study of his diaries, and discovery of early, unpublished poetry, biographer Karin Roffman traced the development of the poet across inner turmoils, from sexuality and family strife, to triumphs such as a prize bestowed by W.H. Auden. How did the shy, sensitive boy depicted in Roffman’s writing become a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet? If, as Ashbery writes, “Our question of a place of origin hangs / Like smoke”, Roffman has given us the tools to ask the smoky question. She spoke at the Library about Ashbery’s remarkable and singular voice, and the relationship between poetry and life.

About the speaker:

Karin Roffman, author of The Songs We Know Best: John Ashbery's Early Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017) which was named one of the 100 notable books for 2017 by the New York Times, is currently completing a full biography. In 2019, in collaboration with the Yale University Digital Humanities Lab, she released John Ashbery’s Nest, a virtual tour and website on John Ashbery’s Hudson house. Her recent essay, “John Ashbery's Music Library: A Playlist”; appeared in Evergreen Review (March 2021). Her essays on 20 th and 21 st century writers and painters have appeared in Raritan, Modern Fiction Studies, Artforum, Rain Taxi, Yale Review, Chicago Review, Wallace Stevens Journal and others. Her first book, From the Modernist Annex, won the Elizabeth Agee American Literature prize. She is currently senior lecturer of Humanities and Associate Director of Public Humanities at Yale University.

Evenings with an Author is generously sponsored by GRoW @ Annenberg.