I don't think Ashbery would have taken himself to be a serious poet. He was all about playfulness. He once said that he never called himself a poet. I think Harold Bloom was largely responsible in people seeing him as serious. And it caught on.

As to O'Hara from what I've read of his he comes across as superficial. In his life he was seen as being a minor poet. But death tends to be kind to such poets.






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Tony Frazer wrote:


I see them both as deeply serious. That doesn’t mean they can’t have a sense of humour. Think Martial, Catullus etc; Rochester.

Bukowski might be on the other shelf though.

Tony