Article snippet: Here is a selection of poems by John Ashbery, who died Sunday. They were chosen by Gregory Cowles, The New York Times’s poetry editor, and Andrew Epstein, an Ashbery expert at Florida State University. Some of Mr. Ashbery’s most famous poems are thousands of words long, and they are not included here. But for a longer read, we recommend “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” from his 1975 collection of the same name. Other poems of note include “The One Thing That Can Save America” (from the same collection) and “Paradoxes and Oxymorons” (from “Shadow Train,” 1980). “The Chateau Hardware” (1970) It was always November there. The farms Were a kind of precinct; a certain control Had been exercised. The little birds Used to collect along the fence. It was the great “as though,” the how the day went, The excursions of the police As I pursued my bodily functions, wanting Neither fire nor water, Vibrating to the distant pinch And turning out the way I am, turning out to greet you. From “The Double Dream of Spring”; reprinted with permission from Ecco Press “Street Musicians” (1977) One died, and the soul was wrenched outOf the other in life, who, walking the streetsWrapped in an identity like a coat, sees on and onThe same corners, volumetrics, shadowsUnder trees. Farther than anyone was everCalled, through increasingly suburban airsAnd ways, with autumn falling over everything:The plush leaves the chattels in barrelsOf an obscure family being evictedInto the way it was, ... Link to the full article to read more