Pulitzer Prize-winning poet John Ashbery once told his late friend and fellow New York School alum Kenneth Koch that when he read, including his own poetry, he was “beset by the idea that it could have been written any other way.” Perhaps that’s why he reads as plainly as possible, to leave open the possibility of discovery. “Each moment of utterance is the true one,” Ashbery once wrote. “Likewise, none are true.” His 27th collection, Quick Question, was just released last December, and although he doesn’t like the sound of his own voice, he’ll be reading — sans inflection — Monday evening at Kelly Writers House.
Mon., Feb. 11, 6:30 p.m., free with reservation, Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, 215-573-9749, writing.upenn.edu.
