John Ashbery

Ashbery met Mathews in 1956, a friend and correspondent from then on. Schuyler co-authored a novel with him. Koch, Mathews and Schuyler were his co-founders and fellow-editors of Locus Solus. Auden, whom he knew slightly, saved his first collection from rejection. He socialised with Perec while the French writer was working on ‘La Vie Mode d’Emploi’, and Perec considered translating Ashbery’s work, though this never happened. He met Saint Phalle through her then-husband Mathews. Tranter published his work, as well as two long interviews, in his online magazine ‘Jacket’. Cage told him Beethoven was wrong.