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his example and influence.Beat poetry is oral, repetitive, andimmensely effective in readings,largely because it developed out ofpoetry readings in undergroundclubs. Some might correctly see it asa great-grandparent of the rap musicthat became prevalent in the 1990s.Beat poetry was the most anti-establishmentform of literature in theUnited States, but beneath its shockingwords lies a love of country. Thepoetry is a cry of pain and rage at whatthe poets see as the loss of America’sinnocence and the tragic waste of itshuman and material resources.Poems like Allen Ginsberg’s Howl(1956) revolutionized traditionalpoetry.I saw the best minds of mygeneration destroyed bymadness, starving hystericalnaked,dragging themselves through thenegro streets at dawnlooking for an angry fix,angelheaded hipsters burningfor the ancient heavenlyconnection to the starrydynamo in themachinery of night...The New York SchoolUnlike the Beat and San Francisopoets, the poets of the New YorkSchool were not interested in overtlymoral questions, and, in general, theysteered clear of political issues. Theyhad the best formal educations of anygroup.The major figures of the New YorkSchool — John Ashbery, Frank O’Hara,JOHN ASHBERYPhoto © Nancy Cramptonand Kenneth Koch — met while theywere undergraduates at HarvardUniversity. They are quintessentiallyurban, cool, nonreligious, witty with apoignant, pastel sophistication.Their poems are fast moving, full ofurban detail, incongruity, and analmost palpable sense of suspendedbelief.New York City is the fine arts centerof America and the birthplace ofabstract expressionism, a majorinspiration of this poetry. Most of thepoets worked as art reviewers ormuseum curators, or collaboratedwith painters. Perhaps because oftheir feeling for abstract art, whichdistrusts figurative shapes and obviousmeanings, their work is oftendifficult to comprehend, as in thelater work of John Ashbery (1927- ),perhaps the most criticallyesteemed poet of the late 20thcentury.Ashbery’s fluid poems recordthoughts and emotions as they washover the mind too swiftly for directarticulation. His profound, longpoem, Self-Portrait in a ConvexMirror (1975), which won threemajor prizes, glides from thought tothought, often reflecting back onitself:A shipFlying unknown colors hasentered the harbor.You are allowing extraneousmattersTo break up your day...Surrealism and ExistentialismIn his anthology defining the new88