Shoptaw says he intends this in an acclamatory way. The book, he says, "is a lot of fun. The best thing about it is that it has late poetry by the elder statesmen of poetry but it doesn't have that high seriousness. It's not pretentious. It's full of adventures, and you just never really know what's going to happen from one moment to the next."

This latest stylistic achievement of the septuagenarian Ashbery can in no way be identified as "autumnal," as a recent review in the Kirkus Review put it.

Rather, it is a fresh voice from a master of contemporary avant-garde poetry, who has capitalized on the current trend toward the acceptance of a broader definition of free-form verse.

Shoptaw says he is nonetheless a bit nostalgic for the Ashbery he was drawn to originally in the 1970's.

"I miss the sense of design that used to be there, the kind of actual strenuousness where he'd take up a kind of a problem and work up through it," he say. "It's as though he feels now he's done his work and can play."

But the critical consensus on his new book, at least, seems to suggest that his new direction is largely welcome.

Louisa Solano, owner of the Grolier Poetry Bookshop in Cambridge, where Ashbery gives frequent readings, prefers to simply let her actions speak for her feelings about the poet's work.

"I attend all of his readings," she says, smiling broadly.