John Ashbery, an enigmatic genius of modern poetry whose energy, daring and boundless command of language raised American verse to brilliant and baffling heights, died early Sunday at age 90. Ashbery was the first living poet to have a volume published by the Library of America dedicated exclusively to his work. "No figure looms so large in American poetry over the past 50 years as John Ashbery," Langdon Hammer wrote in The New York Times in 2008. Writer Joan Didion once attended an Ashbery reading simply because she wanted to determine what the poet was writing about. In 2011, he was given an honorary National Book Award for lifetime achievement and declared he was "quite pleased" with his "status in the world of writers."

Source: CBC News September 03, 2017 21:11 UTC