John Ashbery, _Commotion of the Birds_

COINCIDENTALLY, I WAS about halfway through this when I heard Ashbery had died.

It has the characteristic virtues of 21st century Ashbery, which, rather like 21st century Dylan, may not dazzle as some of the earlier work did but remains worthwhile, adding meaningfully to the corpus.

Thinking back to what I said of Robert Lowell and Laynie Browne a few posts back, it seems to me now that Ashbery is one reason, maybe even the main reason, why we are less likely to think in terms of "America's greatest poet" these days. He seems to have renounced any interest in such a designation as long ago as The Tennis Court Oath, and even when he had as good a reason as anyone to claim the title, back in the days of Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror and anointing by Harold Bloom, he always seemed indifferent to the whole business. If not downright allergic to it.

A healthy thing, really. One of the great many reasons to be grateful for him.