"Ashbury's central subject, the nature and value of imagination, is a crucial one. In his creation of highly mandarin work in a voice which is startlingly and ravishingly contemporary, he has done something with few parallels. This very difficult book gives great pleasure, once we accept that the intellect may find its gratifications tantalizingly deferred."
(Lachlan Mackinnon, The Independent, 23rd July 1994)

"As with other long poems before it ('The Skaters', 'Fragment', 'Litany'), 'And the Stars Were Shining'would seem to have carried Ashbery's poetry into genuinely new fields of inquiry, and it deserves a most generous welcome."
(David Herd, The Times Literary Supplement, 6th January 1995)