News at Eleven: The poetry in the books

from this period often seemed aimed at turning the reader's attention away from beauty and meaning - those things for which language is so often made to serve as a vehicle--and toward the language itself.

But the more recent poems tend to divert the reader's attention not only from questions of meaning and beauty but from the language as well. One's attention instead is focused on the speaker of the poem, who assumes an insistent, even aggressive role.

from San Francisco Chronicle: Ashbery's anthology 'Notes From the Air' delivers, despite himself

~~~~~~~~~~~