“What can one say about a new book by John Ashbery? That Ashbery is as prolific in his 80s as ever? Yes, there are 99 new poems, sequenced alphabetically and most of them a page long, in this book. That his wit is still sharp, the poems still rife with clever justapositions and colliding voices? Absolutely. That he still culls from the highs and lows of culture, making for unlikely yet somehow inevitable meetings? Of course. . . . That perhaps Ashbery has learned a thing or two from his own legions of imitators and acolytes? That’s harder to prove, but almost certainly true. That, is in his last several books, there’s nothing entirely new, but that the poems are almost always satisfying and strange? Indeed. And that, perhaps most surprising, depending on one’s biases, this, Ashbery’s 28th volume of poems, ranks among the most vital collections of the year. Or maybe that’s not a surprise at all.”—Publishers Weekly