Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror

Summary

The title poem meditates on Parmigianino's Mannerist self-portrait to investigate how consciousness, art, and time fail to hold a stable image of the self. Ashbery's discursive, digressive sentences move between high diction and offhand speech, allowing meaning to drift and re-form. The volume confirmed his standing as the central figure in postwar American poetry's experimental wing.