By showing us that the entry point to Ashbery is not any given individual poem within a volume, but the entire volume, Vincent gives us a new and productive approach to reading the recent work of one of our most challenging poets.

John Ashbery and You approaches Ashberys critically neglected recent poetry with an ear to his use of the supremely elastic pronoun you and an eye toward his construction of his books as books. Together, these devices produce effects new to Ashberys oeuvre and offer readers new ways in to his work. John Ashbery and You argues that starting with April Galleons (1987), and reaching an apex in Your Name Here (2000), the poet has been paying increasingly keen and affectionate attention to his readers. Vincent tracks these techniques but above all offers his readers tools to reapproach a dauntingly difficult body of work.