Ashbery, John

The poet, art critic, translator and essayist John Lawrence Ashbery was born in Rochester, New York, and grew up on a farm near Lake Ontario. His brother died as a child. This event came to have a major impact on Ashbery's childhood since he was plagued by guilt on account of having been very mean to his brother. He attended Deerfield Academy, a boys' school where he began to write poetry and to read W.H. Auden and Dylan Thomas. His greatest desire during these years, however, was to become an artist, so from the age of eleven and until the age of fifteen, he was given lessons at the Rochester Museum of Art. Music has been another important source of inspiration.