Ashbery reads Nov. 21

Poet, art critic and professor John Ashbery is recognized as one of the giants of American letters. He will read from his poetry Nov. 21 at 8 p.m. in the U.Va. Bookstore mezzanine. His style, once considered avant-garde, has become “so influential that his imitators are legion,” according to The New Yorker. With the 1975 publication of “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” Ashbery achieved the unprecedented — winning the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Prize in the same year. Author of more than 20 books, Ashbery has also won a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.” His reading, sponsored by the Creative Writing Program, is part of U.Va.’s Peters Rushton Lecture series.