Statutes of Liberty was the first book on The New York School of Poets, and gave an acclaimed account of its key figures: John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, and James Schuyler. This second edition contains up-to-date material on the group and its growing influence on postmodern poetics. A new postscript focuses on the work of Ashbery, currently the most esteemed American poet since Wallace Stevens, and his prolific output in the 1990s, including his 200-page epic poem Flow Chart.

In this lively and provocative study, Geoff Ward puts forward the bold claim that the founding documents of American identity are essentially literary. America was invented, not discovered, and it remains in thrall to the myth of an earthly Paradise. This is Paradise, and American ideology imprisons as it inspires.


The Writing of America shows the tension between these forces in a wide range of literary and other texts, from Puritan sermons and the Declaration of Independence, through nineteenth-century classics, to folk and blues lyrics and the popular novel. Alongside...

The Cognitive Psychology of Planning assesses recent advances in the scientific study of the cognitive processes involved in formulating, evaluating and selecting a sequence of thoughts and actions to achieve a goal. Approaches discussed range from those which look at planning in terms of problem-solving behaviour to those which look at how we control thoughts and actions within the frameworks of attention, working memory or executive function. Topics covered include: simple to complex tasks, well- and ill-defined problems and the effects of age and focal brain damage on planning....

If you want to start an argument in a teachers' lounge, bring up the topic of how best to teach grammar. There is a wide spectrum of opinion. Traditionalists claim that we must explicitly teach grammar. Students drill the basics and diagram sentences. Sometimes their study and drills take the place of writing, but these teachers claim that good writing demands good grammar. At the opposite end of the spectrum are teachers who claim that the best way to learn grammar is to write, thereby being forced to use grammar in writing and editing. They reason that students will learn grammar in the...

The Cognitive Psychology of Planning assesses recent advances in the scientific study of the cognitive processes involved in formulating, evaluating and selecting a sequence of thoughts and actions to achieve a goal. Approaches discussed range from those which look at planning in terms of problem-solving behaviour to those which look at how we control thoughts and actions within the frameworks of attention, working memory or executive function. Topics covered include: simple to complex tasks, well- and ill-defined problems and the effects of age and focal brain damage on planning....

"Intelligent psycho-thriller . . . the plot is ingenious, well-turned and never facile. A compulsive damp Saturday afternoon read." - "Observer"
"Literate and enthralling . . . Far beyond the conventional mystery." - "Hollywood Reporter"
"I read with something like fascination this extraordinary book about a multiple murderer who accompanies each corpse with a quotation from Blake." - "Guardian"
" A] splendid story . . . a gripping thriller about lust and perversion." - "Sunday Times" (London)
A series of brutal and bizarre murders has London on edge. Near the dismembered...

Statutes of Liberty is the first full-length academic study of the New York School of Poets. It contains an introduction to the work of these writers, followed by chapters on the central figures: Frank O'Hara, James Schuyler and John Ashbery. A postscript examines the continuing and changing influence of the New York School. The book is also concerned with deconstruction, a mode of literary analysis with which Ashbery's work in particular has come to be associated by critics in America.

Geoff Ward's glitteringly funny and scary novel sends his hero Miles on a wild pursuit, through this world and the next, of one of only three known copies of the rarest book in existence. Like the object of his obsessive quest, You're Not Dead is both supreme fiction and grail, a one-off exemplar of a lost original. - John Ashbery, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

You're Not Dead is a darkly comic fantasy, with elements of romance. The hero Miles Proctor is a young college...

Geoff Ward's glitteringly funny and scary novel sends his hero Miles on a wild pursuit, through this world and the next, of one of only three known copies of the rarest book in existence. Like the object of his obsessive quest, You're Not Dead is both supreme fiction and grail, a one-off exemplar of a lost original. - John Ashbery, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

You're Not Dead is a darkly comic fantasy, with elements of romance. The hero Miles Proctor is a young college...