Andrew Epstein, Associate Professor of English, Florida State University

""Epstein's elegant book . . . offers a subtle and meticulously researched account of the literary, personal, and philosophical dynamics of the New York School, and of O'Hara, John Ashbery, and Amiri Baraka in particular" - Criticism

""Epstein's revision of O'Hara is emblematic of the bracingly corrective and inspiring nature of Beautiful Enemies as a whole . . . [His] attentiveness, along with his assiduous scholarship, yields results that should change the way the works, their creators, and their milieu are viewed."" - Contemporary Literature

""Beautiful Enemies charts the fascinating tensions between individual and community in the New York poetry world of mid-century . . . a fascinating, beautifully documented investigation, both of individual poems and of the interlocking friendships that animated their production."" - Marjorie Perloff, author of Frank O'Hara, Poet Among Painters

""In Beautiful Enemies, Andrew Epstein offers exemplary Emersonian readings of the intricate web connecting individual talent and collective investment in the poetry and poetics of John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, and Amiri Baraka. Averting the Cold War myth of the individual voice in the wilderness of conformity, Epstein gives us voices in conversation and conflict, suggesting that resistance to agreement is at the heart of a pragmatist understanding of literary community."" - Charles Bernstein, Donald T. Regan Professor of English, University of Pennsylvania