Self-Representation in John Ashbery's Poem Self Portrait in A Convex Mirror

John Ashbery is a distinguished 

member of the New York School of 

Poets. His avant-garde and highly 

innovative poetry make him one of 

America's unique poetic voices. SelfPortrait in a Convex Mirror is one of 

John Ashbery's most significant volumes 

of poetry. The volume's titular poem is 

considered one of the greatest poems of 

contemporary American poetry. The 

poem is a meditation on a self-portrait in 

a convex mirror by the renaissance 

painter Parmigianino. The poet speaks 

through the painter of a distant time and 

establishes an empathetic relationship 

with him, transcending spatial and 

temporal barriers and attempting to 

explore the interconnectedness between 

art and the self. The study of the poet's 

self remains hidden in complex layers of 

introspective meditations on art and art 

criticism. The imagery of mirrors is 

extensively employed throughout the 

poem. In this poem, Ashbery uses the 

mode of emphasis or the poetic 

description of a pictorial or a sculptural 

piece of art. He also posits that all art is 

self-reflexive to some extent. This poem 

narrates a poet's relation to an artwork of 

the past and how he studies it in the 

present. This paper aims to analyze the 

verse from the thematic perspective of 

self-representation.