Each audio production is accompanied by a book containing the texts of the poems and a commentary by J.D. McClatchy. John Ashbery (1927) was born in Rochester, New York. He has published 19 books of poetry including Girls on the Run: A Poem (1999); Wakefulness (1998); And the Stars Were Shining (1994); A Wave (1984) which won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror (1975) which received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Ashbery was the first English-language poet to win the Grand Prix de Biennales Internationales de Poésie (Brussels), and has also received the National Book Award, The Shelley Memorial Award, and fellowships from The Academy of American Poets and the Fulbright Foundation. He is a former Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets and is currently the Charles P. Stevenson, Jr., Professor of Languages at Bard College. He divides his time between New York City and Hudson, New York.