TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
This annotated, searchable catalogue is an inventory of the archive at the Ashbery Resource Center, a project originally developed by The Flow Chart Foundation on behalf of Bard College, and now maintained independently. The archive contains growing collections of material by, about, and relating to John Ashbery and his work; the annotated citations that comprise this catalogue serve to document the archive’s holdings of items in various formats and media, published and unpublished, including poetry, fiction, critical prose, translations, interviews, and collaborations, as well as visual art, musical compositions, films, plays, artifacts, and ephemera.
Although the project is ongoing, the catalogue functions as a de facto provisional bibliography of Ashbery’s work, and as a major step towards establishing the definitive canon. In addition, the wide range of resources identified and categorized in this way helps to define a context for Ashbery’s work and also is made more accessible to researchers and enthusiasts involved with the New York School and the general cultural milieu of the period.
The catalogue has been designed to accommodate both casual browsing of the detailed citations and comprehensive searches of the entire database. Browsing within the catalogue may facilitate serendipitous discoveries among an abundance of factual and speculative information: publication data; identification of source material; anecdotal and contextual backgrounds; subjects covered in interviews, essays, and writings about art; and links to related websites or multimedia files. Searching the database by specific, even multiple variables will yield results tailored to focused inquiries. Either method of use will suggest insights into possible relationships between Ashbery’s work and the multiple contexts within which it exists.
Because this catalogue is an ongoing work-in-progress, users are asked to note that citations are added, corrected and updated frequently (please bring errors and omissions to our attention). Further, due to the idiosyncratic nature of both this catalogue and the work it documents, users should consult the quick key to the bibliographic codes and the general tips on searching the catalogue to get their bearings. Finally, users are cautioned that all inferences in the citations about possible relationships among various items and materials are merely suggestions that may lead to productive avenues of inquiry; conclusions may be drawn at your own risk. Nevertheless, the compilers hope that the catalogue will prove interesting and useful, even in its current incomplete and (deliberately) inconclusive state.
Professor Nicholas Jenkins of Stanford University was the instigator of this catalogue. It is dedicated to him, with sincere thanks.
Basic and advanced searches
A basic search allows you to enter one or more terms into a single search bar. The search engine will find all citations in the catalogue that include your terms in whatever part(s) of the entry those terms may appear. You may do other basic searches within your results to focus your returns. You cannot do an advanced search within the results of a basic search.
An advanced search allows you to enter terms into multiple fields such as author, publication or format. The search engine will find only those citations that match all specified terms in each of the selected fields. In advanced search, you may search within your results by using different terms in a field you had initially selected (for example, you may search the type field for translation and then again for writing about art in order to find all of Ashbery's translations of writing about art by other authors). You cannot do a basic search within the results of an advanced search.
Any-phrase and exact-phrase searches
An any-phrase search is helpful when you are looking for variations on a basic root-word. For example, if you want to find all citations with references to poets, poetry, poetic forms, and poems, you may do an any-phrase search for "poe." Any-phrase searching is also useful when you wish to find all possible results for multiple search terms, rather than just those results where the terms appear exactly as you entered them. For example, if you are looking for critical works on Ashbery by either Helen Vendler, David Shapiro or David Lehman, you may enter "Vendler Shapiro Lehman" in the author field of the advanced search page, and the search engine will find all the entries in which one or more of those names appears in that field.
An exact-phrase search is helpful when you know exactly what you are looking for and do not wish to pull extraneous results. For example, to find all information relating to Ashbery's poem "At North Farm," you should do an exact-phrase search for that title in order to avoid pulling all the entries that include either "at," or "north," or "farm."
If you are doing an exact-phrase search by first and last name in the author, author/editor, or translator fields, you must enter the name exactly as it appears in the entry: last name, first name (comma included), for example, "Ashbery, John." An alternative would be simply an any-phrase or exact-phrase search for "Ashbery." Names in foreign languages, such as Hungarian or Japanese, that traditionally put the family name before the given name (i.e., Gergely Ágnes) will still include a comma between the two to facilitate searching.
Although other popular search engines such as Google use quotation marks to perform exact-phrase searches, the search engine for this catalogue does not. Normally you should not use quotation marks in your searches, because you will only pull citations in which the search phrase is also enclosed in quotation marks (for example, the poem title 'Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror'). If you do use quotation marks as part of your search terms, note that this catalogue uses single rather than double quotation marks.
Searching within results
You may search within the results you have already obtained in order to focus your returns. This process can continue an indefinite number of times until you are satisfied with your results.
You cannot switch between basic and advanced search when searching within results.
You may switch between any-phrase and exact-phrase searching when searching within results.
In advanced search, you may search the same field more than once, in successive stages of searching. For example, if you searched for translation in the type field, you may then search within those results for writing about art in the type field, in order to find all of Ashbery's translations of writing about art by other authors.
General search tips
The following is a list of the “ground rules” that govern the operation of the Ashbery Research Center (ARC) online catalogue search. The rules range from the obvious to the pedantic to the idiosyncratic, and are arranged from the most general in scope to those that pertain to specific search fields and to printing your results.
Browsing: If you want to browse through the complete catalogue, simply click "Do a new search" in either basic or advanced search without entering any terms in the search form. Your results will include all the citations in the catalogue at that time, arranged in the default order of search terms (see next entry).
Default order of search returns: The default order in which citations are returned for any given search is by bibliographic code. Section A results appear first, then Sections B, C, and so on. Within each bibliographic code, the order is chronological, with the most general dates (1989-00-00) appearing before more specific dates (1989-09-22). Citations that share the same bibliographic code and date are arranged alphabetically by the last name of the author (in the case of citations having more than one author, alphabetization is by the first author to appear in the list). Citations that share the same bibliographic code, date, and author are arranged alphabetically by publication. More information about this system of organizing data may be found in the section on bibliographic codes in the complete instruction manual for the catalogue. If you do not want your results sorted by bibliographic code, you may choose another field by which to organize your returns (date, author, publication, etc.); simply click the up or down arrow located to the left of every field in each citation to sort by the desired field. The up arrow will sort your results Z-A, or for the date field, from the most recent to the oldest publication. The down arrow will sort your results A-Z, or for the date field, from the oldest to the most recent publication.
Citations for missing primary items: Although most citations in this catalogue are written for the actual physical material housed in the ARC archive, some citations have been created for missing primary items based on documentation of those items from secondary material in the ARC archive. Such citations appear throughout the catalogue, but primarily in Sections J and K, which include many entries for non-print items (visual art, film, musical compositions, etc.). These entries for phantom materials are clearly identified in the notes field of the citation, as is the nature of the documentation from which the information is drawn.
Complete citations for earliest publication: Generally, only the earliest publication in a particular format of any work available in the ARC archive is given a complete citation in the catalogue. Subsequent printings or editions of books usually are mentioned in the notes field of the entry for the earliest available edition. Similarly, subsequent reprints of individual texts in either books or periodicals usually are mentioned in the notes field of the entry for either the first book or first periodical appearance of the text, respectively. This procedure applies to Sections A, B, C, D, E, F and M.
Exceptions:
Section G items are given separate citations regardless of whether they are first publications or reprints. For further clarification of this point, see the complete description of Section G elsewhere in the complete instruction manual.
Items in Sections H, J1, J2, J3, K2, L1-L4, N1-N3 and P usually are given complete citations in the catalogue for the first publication only, whether in book or periodical format, and all subsequent publications in any format usually are mentioned in the notes field of the primary citation.
Sections J4 and K5 include information relating to visual art; usually each artwork or group of related artworks in J4 and K5 is given a single citation, and all relevant reproductions, exhibitions and related publications are listed in the notes field. Similarly, Sections J5, K1 and K4 include information relating to cinematic and theatrical works; usually each film or play in J5, K1 and K4 is given a single citation, and all relevant recordings, screenings, performances, reviews and related publications are listed in the notes field.
Section K3 includes musical compositions. Usually each new audio recording, public performance or sheet music publication of a given work in K3 is given a separate citation, with supplementary materials listed in the notes field. Multiple performances of a given work by the same musician or ensemble during the course of a tour usually receive a single citation.
Case-sensitivity: Searches are not case-sensitive.
Quotation marks in search terms: Although other popular search engines such as Google use quotation marks to perform exact-phrase searches, the search engine for this catalogue does not. Normally you should not use quotation marks in your searches, because you will only pull citations in which the search phrase is also enclosed in quotation marks (for example, the poem title 'Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror'). If you do use quotation marks as part of your search terms, note that this catalogue uses single rather than double quotation marks.
Parentheses and brackets: Because of technical limitations in the program used to create this catalogue, it is not possible to search for a phrase that includes text both inside and outside parentheses or brackets. For example, a search for the poem title "Landscape (After Baudelaire)" will produce no results. Instead, try searching either for "Landscape," for "After Baudelaire," or for "(After Baudelaire)." Or, you may search for "Landscape" and then search within your results for "Baudelaire."
Roman and italic text: Because of technical limitations in the program used to create this catalogue, it is not possible to search for a phrase that appears partly in roman and partly in italic text. For example, a search for "Ted Berrigan's The Sonnets" will produce no results. Instead, try searching either for Berrigan, or for The Sonnets; or you may search for Berrigan and then search within your results for The Sonnets.
Accent marks: You may not be able to search for a term that contains accent marks without using accent marks in your search. Searching without accent marks for text with accent marks should work for the major European languages: French, Spanish, Italian, German. For some phrases in Polish, Romanian, Hungarian, etc., you must search for the exact term, including foreign characters and accent marks, in order to obtain results. Because the number of results for those languages is relatively small, we suggest that you search by Type: translation, and the particular language, rather than by title or publication. Non-Latin alphabets for languages such as Greek, Russian, Japanese, or Sanskrit are not usually used in the catalogue — Latin-character transliterations of words in those languages have been given when possible.
Changes and additions to the catalogue: Citations are added and corrected on a regular basis. In these initial stages, the compilers of the catalogue generally enter citations in order of bibliographic code, beginning with the citations that postdate David Kermani's John Ashbery: A Comprehensive Bibliography (New York, NY, Garland, 1976). When pre- and post-bibliography citations are related, or if citations with different bibliographic codes are related, those citations may be entered as the processing of archival material logically dictates, which may indeed be "out of order."
Examples used in the instruction manual: Examples of representative items from each section of bibliographic code used in this catalogue are given in the instruction manual following the description of that section. These examples have been selected to convey a sense of the variety of material included in the section, and they are listed with a minimum of descriptive information. The citations in the catalogue itself are fully annotated and presented in a consistent format.
The manual may cite as examples material that has not yet been entered into the online catalogue. Additionally, citations in the catalogue may occasionally cross-reference other citations that will be — but have not yet been — entered. Please do not assume that the search function is malfunctioning if you cannot find an item cited in this manual or in another citation. We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope that all the holdings of the archive at the Ashbery Resource Center will be entered soon.
Explanatory information supplied by compilers / Use of square brackets: Throughout this catalogue the compilers occasionally have added supplementary information in order to clarify certain points or to make the citations more meaningful or revealing. Notes, explanations, and clarifications that have been added within the formal citation fields are enclosed in square brackets. Information in these fields about which the compilers are unsure will be indicated by question marks in square brackets, with an explanation in the notes field as appropriate. Other pertinent information will be included in the notes field.
Use of semicolons: Multiple names or titles within a single field are separated by semicolons.
Empty or null fields: Empty or null fields are suppressed. Fields for which data is not available or that are irrelevant to a particular entry are not displayed (for example, the translator field in the case of a text that has not been translated).
Searching by first and last name: If you are doing an exact-phrase search by first and last name in the author, author/editor or translator fields, you must enter the name exactly as it appears in the entry: last name, first name (comma included), for example, "Ashbery, John." An alternative would be simply an any-phrase or exact-phrase search for "Ashbery." Names in foreign languages, such as Hungarian or Japanese, that traditionally put the family name before the given name (i.e., Gergely Ágnes) will still include a comma between the two to facilitate searching.
Order of names: When there are multiple names in the author, author/editor or translator fields, authors will be listed in the order in which their works appear or are credited in the publication, except that Ashbery will always be listed after other authors in order to facilitate alphabetization of the others' names in those fields.
Titles: Short titles usually are given for periodicals, but full titles usually are given for books. Citations for articles by or about Ashbery that were published with both a headline and standing head or kicker generally note all such titles.
Publications including various works by more than one author: Publications that include several relevant works by different authors may be given either a single or multiple citation(s):
When all relevant works in a single publication are of the same type (for example, multiple essays about Ashbery by different authors), the publication usually is given a single citation that lists all authors and works. Authors are identified in parentheses following individual titles in the title field.
When the relevant works in a single publication are of different types (for example, a publication including a poem by Ashbery, a review of one of Ashbery's books, and an interview with Ashbery), the publication usually is given multiple citations. When this occurs, the notes field of each citation will state that there are additional citations for other relevant works in that particular publication.
However, when a single publication includes relevant works of different types that all focus on a single central theme, it is usually given a single citation. For example, the poetry by Ashbery and prints by visual artists that appear together in fine art editions are cited together in a single entry, since the poetry and visual art are generally either conceived in conjunction with each other, as a full collaboration between poet and artist, or the artwork is presented as a response to Ashbery's work.
Dates: Publications dated by season or other span of time cannot be identified as such in the date field because of technical limitations in the program used to create this catalogue. Therefore, when needed, an approximate date (described below) will be entered in the date fields, while the actual stated date of publication will be cited in the notes field.
Publications dated by season will be entered in the date field by the first month in which a given season begins. Note that you will search for the examples below using the same dates in both From and To fields. Examples are:
For a publication dated 1989 Spring, the date field will read 1989-03-00;
For a publication dated 1989 Summer, the date field will read 1989-06-00;
For a publication dated 1989 Fall (or Autumn), the date field will read 1989-09-00;
For a publication dated 1989 Winter, the date field will read either 1989-12-00 or 1989-01-00. (The compilers assume that Winter issues appear at the end of the year rather than at the beginning, unless we have information that suggests otherwise.)
Publications listing a date that spans a time period other than a single season will be entered in the date field by the earliest given date (using this date in both the From and To fields). Examples are:
1989 Spring-Summer will be entered in the date field as 1989-03-00;
1989-1990 will be entered in the date field as 1989-00-00;
1989 April 27-May 13 will be entered in the date field as 1989-04-27.
Foreign-language publications: While the ARC has attempted to accurately document as much information as possible about foreign-language items, interpretation of these publications is sometimes difficult. Users should verify information included in these citations.
Multiple classifications of individual items: An individual item may be classified in more than one category within the type or format fields. For example, a CD recording of a Lincoln Center concert of musical settings of Ashbery's poems is classified by type as both music and performance. A journal including a translation by Ashbery of a review of art exhibitions in Paris is classified by type as both translation and writing about art. (Please note that, in advanced search, users may only search by one term at a time in each field. Therefore, to search for translations of writing about art, first select "translation" in the type field, then use the search-within-results advanced search form at the bottom of your results page to select "writing about art" in the same field.)
Interview subject terms: Due to the specific and idiosyncratic nature of the topics Ashbery tends to discuss when being interviewed, the compilers of this catalogue have found it most efficient not to use the Library of Congress' standard subject terms to try to describe them, but rather to work with the idiosyncrasies of our subject. If you have trouble interpreting the lists of subjects provided in interview citations, or if you want to search the notes field for a particular topic discussed in an interview, see the section "interview subject terms" in the complete instruction manual for the catalogue.
Terminology in the notes field: The descriptive terminology used in the notes field reflects an effort to standardize and limit the vocabulary in order to make searches more productive and maximize the number of results. Search terms that may generate interesting results include:
collaboration
source material
influence
epigraph
poetic form
never appeared
special issue
Hudson
architecture
house / home / apartment / etc.
music / opera / composer / symphony / listening / etc.
cinema / film / movie / actor / director / character / footage / etc.
painting / painter / photograph / photographer / art / artwork / etc.
dream / dreams / dreaming / dreamed / etc.
Uncollected poems: The notes field identifies poems published in periodicals or elsewhere that have never appeared in any of Ashbery's collections. Please note that identification of these poems is based, for now, primarily on a comparison of titles alone. It is possible that some of the poems identified as having never appeared in Ashbery's collections were in fact published under alternate titles.
Hidden addresses of Internet resources: Please be aware that the search engine for this catalogue will search hidden web addresses that link to related resources. For example, an any-phrase search for "fugue" returns an entry in which that term does not appear because the hidden website address for the link to the Sierra Chamber Society is www.fuguemasters.com.
Links within citations: The notes and links fields may contain links to webpages, on this site or others, that are relevant to the citation. When you click on those links, a new window will open so that you will not lose your place in the catalogue. Links may take users to files containing images of cover art for Ashbery’s books or portraits of Ashbery, video files of Ashbery reading his work, audio files of musical settings of Ashbery's work, or text files of poems or essays, etc. There may be links to pages outside this catalogue that include poems by, interviews with, or essays about Ashbery. Some links may lead to information about Ashbery’s influences or source material. Please note that this information will often be speculative, and that the absence of such information does not mean that there is no information about source material or influences for the work in question. No attempt has been made in this catalogue to provide either an exhaustive set of links to supplementary websites or comprehensive information about Ashbery's sources or influences, and the links are meant merely to suggest various avenues of inquiry that may be productive. The ARC is not responsible for the content of pages outside our site.
Displaying and printing results: Results are displayed ten to a page. You can print only one page of results at a time. To print a single citation from a page that includes others, highlight that citation and print using the "Print selection" option. If this causes errors in the format of the print-out, do a search that will return only the citation you wish to print, and simply print the page.
Bibliographic code field
This search field identifies materials in the ARC archive according to a system that groups similar items by type or format into various sections. A Key to the Bibliographic Codes can be found here. The system of "bibliographic" codes described below has been adapted from the traditional bibliographic classification system used in David Kermani's John Ashbery: A Comprehensive Bibliography. Because that volume is a standard reference in the field of Ashbery studies, a basic consistency of organization between Kermani's work and this catalogue will be useful to scholars and researchers; therefore, the sections of this archival catalogue reflect the categories used there as much as possible. Please note, however, that Kermani's system has been substantially altered to suit the purposes of this catalogue, which serves primarily to document the various types of material held in the ARC archive. Although designed to be compatible with Kermani's work, this catalogue is not, in the strict sense, either a conventional bibliography or a sequel to Kermani's earlier volume.
The sections in this catalogue are designated by the bibliographic code letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, J1, J2, J3, J4, J5, K1, K2, K3, K4, K5, L1, L2, L3, L4, M, N1, N2, N3, O, P, Q, R, Z. (The letter I has been skipped in order to avoid confusion with the numerals 1.) Information about the type(s) of material included within each section may be found in the chapters of this instruction manual that deal with specific bibliographic codes, as well as in the quick reference guide to those codes.
Sections A-G are defined here much as they were in Kermani's volume. However, Kermani's Section H, which included a relatively small number of miscellaneous materials (interviews, blurbs, recordings, etc.), has been expanded into this catalogue's Sections H, J, and K in order to efficiently deal with large quantities of interesting items in a variety of media (mostly post-1975). Sections L, M, N, and P have been added to accommodate material in the ARC's holdings that was largely beyond the stated scope of Kermani's bibliography (e.g. critical work about Ashbery, biographical and contextual information, etc.). These new and expanded categories, while assuredly practical and more convenient for the user, also facilitate the presentation of this archival material in ways that may provide insight into possible relationships between Ashbery's work and the multiple contexts within which it exists.
Because this is a work-in-progress, entries in this online catalogue are not consecutively numbered at this time. While this situation does not impede any of the search functions in the database, it does not allow for convenient abbreviated notation of individual entries (e.g. "C124"), requiring instead that references to individual entries be made in terms of specific bibliographic code section, title, date, and/or other publication information (e.g. "L1, Harvard Review, 2002 Spring"). However, items in this catalogue that were listed in Kermani's bibliography are referred to in the notes field of the entry by their bibliography numbers (e.g. "Kermani F271"); users are encouraged to check the original entries in the bibliography for possible additional information about those items.
Author field
This field identifies the person(s) responsible for creating the individual works included in a publication or collection (such as poems in an anthology or periodical, book reviews in a newspaper or journal, or tracks on a CD), as opposed to the person(s) responsible for creating that publication in its entirety (who will be listed in the author/editor field). Of course, the author and the author/editor are occasionally the same, as in the case of Houseboat Days, for which Ashbery is both the author of the individual poems within the collection and the author/editor of the collection as a whole; or in the case of the cinematic interpretation of Ashbery's work, Indelible, Inedible, for which the director Rudy Burckhardt is listed in the author and author/editor fields (and the title of the film is listed in both the title and publication fields).
The term "author" is understood to include writers, musicians, visual artists, interviewers/ees, contest winners, etc.
If you are doing an exact-phrase search by first and last name in the author field, you must enter the name exactly as it appears in the entry: last name, first name (comma included), for example, "Ashbery, John." An alternative would be simply an any-phrase or exact-phrase search for "Ashbery." Names in foreign languages, such as Hungarian or Japanese, that traditionally put the family name before the given name (i.e., Gergely Ágnes) will still include a comma between the two to facilitate searching.
This field will list multiple authors for publications that include collaborative material or for publications that include more than one relevant work (such as a single publication with several articles about Ashbery by different authors).
When there are multiple names in the author field, authors will be listed in the order in which their works appear or are credited in the publication, except that Ashbery will always be listed after other authors in order to facilitate alphabetization of the others' names when sorting results by the author field.
Tips on searching by author:
For publications including work selected by or nominated by Ashbery, or relating to competitions judged by Ashbery, the persons selected, nominated or judged are listed in the author field; the editors, nominators, or judges are listed in the author/editor field. For example, for the Cheltenham Art Centre's 41 st Annual Award Exhibition, for which Ashbery was a juror, he is listed in the author/editor field, while the author field reads: Hide, Cynthia (1st prize); McCabe, Pamela (2nd prize); Schaefer, James B. (3rd prize); + various: 100 winners were selected in all.
Note:
Translators are never listed in the author field.
For interviews, both interviewer and interviewee are listed in the author field.
For miscellaneous published remarks by Ashbery that appear within a text by another author, both Ashbery and the author of the work in question are listed in the author field (Ashbery's role in the text will be clarified in the notes field).
For blurbs by Ashbery, Ashbery is listed in the author field (the author of the work for which the blurb was written is listed in the author/editor field).
For works of cinema, music, theater and visual art that are based on, influenced by, or otherwise directly related to Ashbery or his work, the directors, composers, playwrights, and artists are listed in the author field, and frequently are also listed in the author/editor field. Cinematographers, producers, mixers, concert directors, etc. are usually listed in the author/editor field rather than the author field. Actors and musicians are usually listed in the notes field.
Title field
This field identifies the titles of individual works in a publication or collection, such as poems in a periodical or tracks on a CD (to search by the title of a particular publication made up of numerous individual works, such as the periodical Newsweek, use the publication field). The title and publication fields will occasionally contain the same information, as in the case of a book-length poem such as "The Vermont Notebook" or "Girls on the Run," or in the case of a cinematic interpretation of Ashbery's work, a concert performance of a setting of Ashbery's work, a portrait of Ashbery, or any other item for which there is no useful distinction to be made between an individual work and an entire collection.
Information in the title field will identify, for example: poems or prose texts in a collection or periodical, musical compositions on an LP or CD, etc. For publications that include multiple relevant titles, those titles are listed in the order in which they appear in the publication.
Tips on searching the title field:
Page numbers, track information, etc., are usually given in parentheses after the title, when available. For example, the title field of the entry for the CD that includes Alvin Lucier's "Theme," a musical treatment of work by Ashbery, reads: 'Theme' (track 2) (18 minutes, 45 seconds).
When the title field includes multiple titles by different authors, authorship is clarified by listing the name of the author after each title.
Untitled works will be designated as such within square brackets, followed by either a short description of the material or the first line of the text. For example, the title field of the entry for American Victorian, a book including photographs of Ashbery's Hudson home, reads: [untitled photograph, newel post] (p. 25); [untitled photograph, stained glass window on front staircase landing] (p. 32); [untitled photograph, library] (p. 40); [untitled photograph, wallpaper used in master bedroom] (p. 64); [untitled photograph, wallpaper used in dining room] (p. 72); [untitled photograph, dining room] (p. 129 and back cover).
Capitalization of titles has been standardized according to the practice of American English. Exceptions occur for foreign-language titles and for those in which it seems the author has consciously manipulated the capitalization.
Initial articles (A, An, The) have been dropped from English-language titles (but not from foreign-language titles) by authors other than Ashbery when those titles are the first to be listed in the title field. However, for titles by Ashbery, the initial articles have been placed at the end of the title, after a comma. For titles that occur within a group of titles by Ashbery, rather than as the first title in that group, the article appears normally at the beginning of the title. This has been done to facilitate alphabetization of results when sorting by the title field without unnecessary awkwardness or inversion.
Citations for articles by or about Ashbery that were published with both a headline and standing head or kicker generally note all such titles.
Citations for translated works will give the translated title as well as the original, when possible. For example, the title field of the entry for the Swedish periodical Artes identifies the translated poem as: 'Ur självporträtt i en konvex spegel' / 'Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror' (pp. 16-27). Non-Latin alphabets are not usually used in the catalogue; for a Japanese translation of poems by Ashbery, for example, the title field will identify the translated poems only by their English titles.
For blurbs by Ashbery, the text of the blurb will be given in the title field. For example, the title field of the entry for Gillian McCain's book Tilt reads: Gillian McCain's poems are like urgent telegrams from next door, or oddly but brilliantly cropped snapshots of the life that is going by.
Publication field
This field identifies the title of a publication or collection: for example, the title of a periodical including poems by Ashbery, the title of an exhibition catalogue including a foreword by Ashbery, or the title of a CD including musical settings of Ashbery's work. To search by the title of an individual work within a collection, such as a specific poem or one song on a CD, use the title field. The title and publication fields will occasionally contain the same information, as in the case of a book-length poem such as The Vermont Notebook or Girls on the Run, or in the case of a cinematic interpretation of Ashbery's work, a concert performance of a setting of Ashbery's work, a portrait of Ashbery, or any other item for which there is no useful distinction to be made between an individual work and an entire collection.
The publication field will identify the titles of items produced in a variety of formats and media, including books, broadsides, periodicals, exhibition catalogues, audio tapes, LPs, CDs, VHS tapes, DVDs, etc.
Specific information about the volume and issue numbers of individual periodicals is given in the notes field of the citation.
Tips on searching the publication field:
For untitled collections of material, a description of the work will be given in square brackets.
Capitalization of titles of publications has been standardized according to the practice of American English. Exceptions occur for foreign-language publications and for those in which it seems the author has consciously manipulated the capitalization.
Initial articles (A, An, The) in the publication field have been dropped from English-language titles (but not from foreign-language titles) by authors other than Ashbery. However, for publications by Ashbery, the initial articles have been placed at the end of the title, after a comma. This has been done to facilitate alphabetization of results when sorting by the publication field without unnecessary awkwardness or inversion.
Short titles usually are given throughout for periodicals, but full titles usually are given for books.
Citations for translated works will give the translated title, as well as the original, when possible. For example, the publication field of the entry for the Italian translation of Ashbery's collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror identifies the translated collection as Autoritratto in uno specchio convesso / Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror. Non-Latin alphabets are not usually used in the catalogue; for a Greek translation of Ashbery's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, for example, the publication field identifies the collection only as Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror.
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Author/editor field
This field identifies the person(s) responsible for creating collections or publications in their entirety (books, periodicals, exhibition catalogues, CDs, etc.), as opposed to the person(s) responsible for creating the individual works included within a collection or publication (who will be listed in the author field). Of course, the author and the author/editor are occasionally the same, as in the case of Houseboat Days, for which Ashbery is both the author of the individual poems within the collection and the author/editor of the collection as a whole; or in the case of the cinematic interpretation of Ashbery's work, Indelible, Inedible, for which the director Rudy Burckhardt is listed in the author and author/editor fields (and the title of the film is listed in both the title and publication fields).
If you are doing an exact-phrase search by first and last name in the author/editor field, you must enter the name exactly as it appears in the entry: last name, first name (comma included), for example, "Ashbery, John." An alternative would be simply an any-phrase or exact-phrase search for "Ashbery." Names in foreign languages, such as Hungarian or Japanese, that traditionally put the family name before the given name (i.e., Gergely Ágnes) will still include a comma between the two to facilitate searching.
When there are multiple names in the author/editor field, authors and editors will be listed in the order in which their works appear or are credited in the publication, except that Ashbery will always be listed after other authors and editors in order to facilitate alphabetization of the others' names when sorting results by the author/editor field.
Tips on searching by author/editor:
A name in the author/editor field may be followed by additional information clarifying the role of that individual, unless the person cited is simply the author of a book. For example, the author/editor field of the entry for the periodical Issues that includes a poem by Ashbery reads: Scott, Pamela (editor-in-chief); Stark, Paul (poetry editor). For the exhibition catalogue Edwin Dickinson: Draftsman/Painterthat includes writing about art by Ashbery, the author/editor field reads: Dickinson, Edwin (artist); Dobkin, John H. (organizer of the exhibition). However, for Bernadette Mayer's book Midwinter Day, which has a blurb by Ashbery, the author/editor field reads simply: Mayer, Bernadette.
In cases where work is selected, nominated or judged, the names of the editors, nominators, jurors and judges will appear in the author/editor field (the names of those selected, nominated or judged will appear in the author field). For example, the author/editor field of the entry for the Cheltenham Art Centre's 41st Annual Award Exhibition, for which Ashbery was one of the jurors, reads: Ashbery, John (juror).
For translations that appear in a book or periodical featuring various works by and/or translated by three or more people, the general author or editor of the entire publication will be named in the author/editor field (original authors will be listed in the author field; translators will be listed in the translator field). However, in the case of translations by one or two translators only, both the general editor(s) or original author(s) and the translator(s) will be listed in the author/editor field. (The translator[s] will also be listed in the translator field.) For example, the author/editor field for Aldo Busi's Italian translation of the entirety of Ashbery's collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, reads: Busi, Aldo (translator); Ashbery, John.
For blurbs by Ashbery, the author of the blurbed work is listed in the author/editor field (Ashbery is listed in the author field).
Individuals identified in the author/editor field may also include the editor-in-chief or poetry editor of a periodical or anthology, the author of a novel or collection of poems or essays; or, in the case of an exhibition catalogue, the artist, curator, and/or gallery director.
For works of cinema, music, theater and visual art that are based on, influenced by, or otherwise directly related to Ashbery or his work, the directors, composers, playwrights, and artists are listed in the author/editor field, and frequently are also listed in the author field. Cinematographers, producers, mixers, concert directors, etc. are usually listed in the author/editor field. Actors and musicians are usually listed in the notes field.
Translator field
This search field identifies the person(s) responsible for translating a text.
If you are doing an exact-phrase search by first and last name in the translator field, you must enter the name exactly as it appears in the entry: last name, first name (comma included), for example, "Ashbery, John." An alternative would be simply an any-phrase or exact-phrase search for "Ashbery." Names in foreign languages, such as Hungarian or Japanese, that traditionally put the family name before the given name (i.e., Gergely Ágnes) will still include a comma between the two to facilitate searching.
When there are multiple names in the translator field, translators will be listed in the order in which their works appear or are credited in the publication, except that Ashbery will always be listed after other translators in order to facilitate alphabetization of the others' names when sorting results by the translator field.
You may not be able to search for a translator whose name contains accent marks without using accent marks in your search. Searching without accent marks for names with accent marks should work for the major European languages: French, Spanish, Italian, German. For some names in Polish, Romanian, Hungarian, etc., you must search for the exact name, including foreign characters and accent marks, in order to obtain results. Because the number of results for those languages is relatively small, we suggest that you search by Type: translation, and the particular language, rather than by the translator's name.
Non-Latin alphabets for languages such as Greek, Russian, Japanese, or Sanskrit are not usually used in the catalogue — Latin-character transliterations of names in those languages will be given when possible.
In the case of a collection of translations by one or two translators only, the translator(s) will be listed with the general editor(s) or original author(s) in the author/editor field, as well as in the translator field. In the case of translations by three or more translators, the translators will only be listed in the translator field.
Language field
This field identifies the language in which a given work appears.
For all translations of Ashbery's work from English, only the language of translation will be identified in the language field. The notes field will state whether or not the publication is bilingual. For other bilingual publications, including translations by Ashbery of foreign-language works, both the original language and the language of translation will be identified in the language field.
For translations by Ashbery published in English only, the original language will be identified in the notes field.
Place of publication field field
This field identifies the location of the publishing/editorial offices of a publication.
Locations within the United States are identified as: city, state (postal abbreviation, no periods). For example: "New York, NY," "Cambridge, MA," or "San Francisco, CA."
Locations outside the United States are identified as: city, country (may be abbreviated). For example, "Manchester, United Kingdom," "Toronto, Canada," or "Paris, France,” or “London, UK.”
In some cases the compilers of the catalogue have only been able to identify the state or country of publication.
Publisher field
This field identifies the entity (usually not an individual) responsible for publishing a book, periodical, CD, VHS tape, etc.
Many periodicals are self-published and, in cases where the publishing entity is not stated explicitly in the publication, the publisher field may be suppressed. When major publications are published by a corporate entity, the identification of which adds little to an understanding of the significance of an item (for example, the New Yorker, published by Condé Nast), the publisher field may be suppressed.
In the case of exhibition catalogues, the gallery or museum will most often be identified as the publisher.
For concert performances, the sponsoring institution or hosting venue may be cited in the publisher field.
For theatrical performances, the venue or theater company may be cited in the publisher field.
Date of publication field
This field identifies the stated date of publication of a book, catalogue, periodical, CD, or other such material. Other information about the date of publication (for example, that the item may not have been issued on the stated date) will be included in the notes field.
The format for how dates appear in records is: YYYY-MM-DD.
Note:
Using the Search functions, if you are only searching for a year or years without needing a specific month (or day), you may simply enter the year (i.e. 1987), or similarly, just the year and month (i.e. 1987-03).
Publications dated by season or other span of time cannot be identified as such in the date field because of technical limitations in the program used to create this catalogue. Therefore, when needed, an approximate date (described below) will be entered in the date field, while the actual stated date of publication will be cited in the notes field.
Publications dated by season will be entered in the date field by the first month in which a given season begins. Note that you will place the same date in both the From and To fields). Examples are:
For a publication dated 1989 Spring, the date field will read 1989-03-00;
For a publication dated 1989 Summer, the date field will read 1989-06-00;
For a publication dated 1989 Fall (or Autumn), the date field will read 1989-09-00;
For a publication dated 1989 Winter, the date field will read either 1989-12-00 or 1989-01-00. (The compilers assume that Winter issues appear at the end of the year rather than at the beginning, unless we have information that suggests otherwise.)
Publications listing a date that spans a time period other than a single season will be entered in the date field by the earliest given date (use the same date for both the From and To fields). Examples are:
1989 Spring-Summer will be entered in the date field as 1989-03-00;
1989-1990 will be entered in the date field as 1989-00-00;
1989 April 27-May 13 will be entered in the date field as 1989-04-27.
Please be sure to check the notes field to ensure that you have the accurate date for a publication.
You may search the catalogue for items starting from a given date, up to a given date, or between two dates:
If you fill in only the From component of the date of publication field, your search will return all the material published from and including the date you selected up to the most recent date in the catalogue.
If you fill in only the To component of the date of publication field, your search will return all the material published from the earliest date in the catalogue up to and including the date you selected.
If you select From 1985-00-00, To 1985-00-00, your search will return all the material published between 1985-01-01 and 1985-12-31, including material for which the date of publication is given as 1985-00-00.
However, if you select From 1985-01-01, To 1985-12-31, your search will return all the material published between and including those dates, but will not include material for which the publication date is given as 1985-00-00.
If you select From 1979-04-24, To 1979-04-24, your search will return only the material whose stated date of publication is that exact day.
Illustrations field
This field identifies visual artwork printed in conjunction with a text or with a publication as a whole. The illustrations field supplies titles, artist names, and descriptive information about the artwork, as available or relevant.
Tips on searching by illustrations:
The illustrations field deals primarily with illustrations that accompany creative (i.e., non-critical) texts by John Ashbery and the cover art for collections of Ashbery's work. It does not attempt to document exhaustively all illustration of works in the archive. For example, the illustrations field may not consistently provide information about photographs of Ashbery that accompany publications of poems or interviews, nor about reproductions of visual art that accompany his writing about art.
The illustrator will always be listed in the illustrations field. However, depending on the degree of collaboration between illustrator and author, the illustrator may also be listed in the author or author/editor field. For example, citations for fine art editions, which tend to give equal emphasis to the text and the accompanying visual artwork, will list the illustrator along with Ashbery in the author/editor field.
In the case of theatrical productions or films, the illustrations field will include information about set design, etc.
Format field
Format field
This field identifies the physical format or medium in which a particular item was issued or exists (to identify material based on the type or inherent nature of an individual item, see the type field).
The format field is composed of twelve categories:
Art Publication
Artist Book
Audio Recording
Book
Broadside
Chapbook
Miscellaneous
Periodical
Program
Script
Sheet Music
Unpublished
Video Recording
Website
Material may be classified in more than one category when the format is ambiguous (for example, if it is difficult to determine whether the publication is a book or a periodical) or when the publication exists in more than one of the format categories (for example, if a periodical is published online, as a website).
When a citation has been created for a missing primary item based on documentation of that item from secondary material in the ARC archive, the format field will reflect both the primary and secondary material. For example, when the ARC has a review of a recording of a musical setting of Ashbery's work rather than the recording itself, the citation will be categorized by format both as a periodical and as an audio recording. When the ARC has secondary documentation in addition to the primary item, the format field will reflect only the primary material, and secondary materials will be listed in the notes field. For example, when the ARC has both a recording and a review of the recording, the citation will be categorized by format as an audio recording only.
Type field
This field identifies the type or inherent nature of an individual item (to identify material based on the physical format or medium in which a particular item was issued or exists, see the format field).
The type field is composed of sixteen categories:
Blurb
Competition Judged by Ashbery
Correspondence
Dissertation/Thesis
Edited/Selected by Ashbery
Fiction
Film
Interview
Miscellaneous Prose
Miscellaneous Published Remark
Music
Performance
Play
Poetry
Reading
Translation
Visual Art
Writing about Art
Material may be classified in more than one category. For example, materials pertaining to a Lincoln Center concert of various musical settings of Ashbery's work will be classified by type as both music and performance.
When a citation has been created for a missing primary item based on documentation of that item from secondary material in the ARC archive, the type field will reflect both the primary and secondary material. For example, when the ARC has a review of a recording of a musical setting of Ashbery's work rather than the recording itself, the citation will be categorized by type both as miscellaneous prose and as music. When the ARC has secondary documentation in addition to the primary item, the type field will reflect only the primary material, and secondary materials will be listed in the notes field. For example, when the ARC has both a recording and a review of the recording, the citation will be categorized by type as music only.
Notes field
The notes field presents the user with additional information not included in the preceding fields. In general, the notes field is used to clarify and amplify the content or relevance of a citation, and includes any type of information that the compilers believe may be useful, informative, or thought-provoking. Common uses of the notes field are listed below:
When material cited in this catalogue also was included in David Kermani's John Ashbery: A Comprehensive Bibliography, the notes field gives the bibliographic section and number assigned to the item in that work (e.g. Kermani C183). Users are encouraged to check the original entries in the bibliography for possible additional information about those items.
The notes field gives specific information about the volume and issue numbers for periodical publications.
he notes field provides specific information for dates that cannot be represented accurately in the date of publication field. (For example, the notes field of an entry for a publication dated 1989-03-00 in the date of publication field might read: Stated date of publication is 1989 Spring.)
The notes field identifies special issues of periodicals that may be dedicated in whole or in part either to Ashbery's work or to some other relevant subject.
The notes field specifies cases in which a work is a collaboration.
The notes field identifies citations that have been created for primary items that are missing from the ARC archive, based on documentation of those items from secondary materials in the archive.
The notes field alerts the user to problems with or queries about the citation.
The notes field provides epigraphs and dedications that accompany texts by Ashbery.
The notes field identifies poems published in periodicals or elsewhere that have never appeared in any of Ashbery's collections. Please note that identification of these poems is based, for now, primarily on a comparison of titles alone. It is possible that some of the poems identified as having never appeared in Ashbery's collections were in fact published under alternate titles.
The notes field indicates the original language of a translated work and states whether or not a translation is published bilingually.
The notes field provides the titles of books addressed in book reviews.
When miscellaneous references to Ashbery appear in publications that also include work of greater bibliographic/archival significance (for example, those that also include a poem by or essay about Ashbery), such additional references may not be given complete individual citations, but may only be mentioned in the notes field of the entry for the more important work.
The notes field alerts the user to related citations in the catalogue. For example, in an entry for one of Ashbery's poems in a periodical, the notes field may include a reference to a separate entry for an interview with Ashbery published in the same issue of that periodical.
The notes field gives information about various editions and printings of Ashbery's collections (although no attempt has been made in this catalogue to provide comprehensive bibliographic data for each title).
The notes field includes information about blurbs used for the promotion of works by Ashbery.
The notes field gives information about sources for or influences on Ashbery's work, and may include links to related websites (the ARC is not responsible for content on pages outside our site). Please note that this information will often be speculative, and that the absence of such information does not mean that there is no information about source material or influences for the work in question. No attempt has been made in this catalogue to provide either an exhaustive set of links to supplementary websites or comprehensive information about Ashbery's sources or influences, and the notes are meant merely to suggest various avenues of inquiry that may be productive.
If the subject of a text categorized as writing about art is not clearly indicated through its title, additional information will be provided in the notes field of the citation. The terminology will be as specific as possible, e.g. a text about a Picasso exhibition will indicate "Picasso" as the subject rather than "Cubism," unless the Cubist movement in general is discussed in the text.
The subjects discussed in interviews with Ashbery are specified in the notes field of the citation. A list of the standardized terminology used for this purpose, along with additional relevant information, may be found in the chapter on interview subject terms in this instruction manual.
The notes field gives information about responses to the cited work by other artists in various media. For example, in an entry for a collection of Ashbery's work, the notes field may cross-reference a fine art edition that includes a visual artist's illustration for one of the poems in the collection, or a CD that includes a composer's musical setting of another of the poems.
The notes field may provide brief synopses or descriptions of critical work about Ashbery.
The descriptive terminology used in the notes field reflects an effort to standardize and limit the vocabulary in order to make searches more productive and maximize the number of results. Search terms that may generate interesting results include:
collaboration
source material
influence
epigraph
poetic form
never appeared
special issue
Hudson
architecture
house / home / apartment / etc.
music / opera / composer / symphony / listening / etc.
cinema / film / movie / actor / director / character / footage / etc.
painting / painter / photograph / photographer / art / artwork / etc.
dream / dreams / dreaming / dreamed / etc.
Links field
The links field contains links to webpages, on this site or others, that are relevant to the citation. When you click on those links, a new window will open so that you will not lose your place in the catalogue.
Links may take users to files containing images of cover art for Ashbery’s books or portraits of Ashbery, video files of Ashbery reading his work, audio files of musical settings of Ashbery's work, or text files of poems or essays, etc. There may be links to pages outside this catalogue that include poems by, interviews with, or essays about Ashbery.
Links may also appear in other fields of the citation when information in those fields relates to online materials.
Some links may lead to information about Ashbery’s influences or source material. Please note that this information will often be speculative, and that the absence of such information does not mean that there is no information about source material or influences for the work in question. No attempt has been made in this catalogue to provide either an exhaustive set of links to supplementary websites or comprehensive information about Ashbery's sources or influences, and the links are meant merely to suggest various avenues of inquiry that may be productive. The ARC is not responsible for the content of pages outside our site.