Poet John Ashbery dead at age 90

Hillel Italie, The Associated Press</span>
Published Sunday, September 3, 2017 4:26PM EDT

NEW YORK - John Ashbery, widely regarded as one of the world's greatest poets, has died.

Ashbery's husband, David Kermani, said the poet died early Sunday at home in Hudson, New York, of natural causes. He was 90.

His 1975 collection, "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror," was the winner of the book world's unofficial triple crown: the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle prize.

Ashbery was an enigmatic genius of modern poetry whose energy, daring and boundless command of language raised American verse to brilliant heights.

Among a generation of poets that included Richard Wilbur, W.S. Merwin and Adrienne Rich, Ashbery stood out.

He was known for his audacity and wordplay, his modernist shifts between high oratory and everyday chatter, his humour, wisdom and dazzling runs of sense impressions.

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