John Ashbery will give a reading at the Kelly Writer’s House on February 11, 2013 at 6:30PM. On Tuesday at 10 AM the Writers House will host a brunch followed by a one-hour interview/conversation; attendance for both programs is by rsvp only (rsvp to whfellow@writing.upenn.edu). Both programs will be broadcast live worldwide on KWH-TV and both of the Monday and Tuesday programs will be available as a link from this page. On Tuesday morning, you can participate along with the KWH-TV broadcast by emailing and phoning in questions. To participate (from a distance), write to whfellow@writing.upenn.edu. For more information check the Writer’s House Site.

Born in Rochester, New York, in 1927, John Ashbery is the author of over twenty-five books of poetry, a celebrated translator of French poetry, and collaborator on projects with the likes of Joe Brainard and James Schuyler. Many critics deem Ashbery the greatest living American poet.

Ashbery’s most recent poetry collections were published in 2007, A Worldly Country, and 2009, Planisphere. His early work in particular is associated with the “New York School” of poets of the 1950s and 1960s. In 1984, his book A Wave won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. For Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975), he received three of the most prestigious awards for poetry: Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the National Book Award. Some Trees (1956) was selected by W. H. Auden for the Yale Younger Poets Series. He has received a long list of other awards, including the Wallace Stevens Award, the Bollingen Prize, the English Speaking Union Prize, the Feltrinelli Prize, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, two Ingram Merrill Foundation grants, the MLA Common Wealth Award in Literature, the Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize, the Frank O’Hara Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, and fellowships from The Academy of American Poets, the Fulbright Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation. He is also a former Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets.