Poems Retrieved [Paperback]

Frank O'Hara (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2001

This volume completes the publication of all the poems Frank O’Hara write between 1950 and his tragic death in 1966. "O’Hara the quintessential Postmodernist . . . His work is a kind of watershed, a culmination of the Modernists’ efforts to exploit the city, and a prototype of the poetry to come."—Neal Bowers

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Grey Fox Press; Rev Sub edition (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0912516194
• ISBN-13: 978-0912516196
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #538,063 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Frank O'Hara (1926-1966) was one of the most original and influential American poets of the twentieth century. Although he grew up in Grafton, Massachusetts, O'Hara developed into the quintessential poet of mid-century Manhattan; soon after his arrival in New York in 1951 he evolved a new kind of urban poetry that brilliantly captures the heady excitements of a golden period in the city's artistic life. O'Hara's style exudes an insistent, seductive glamour; his mercurial poems, at once open-ended and startlingly immediate, radiate an insouciant confidence that has lost none of its freshness over the decades. O'Hara was at the heart of a vibrant artistic circle that embraced fellow New York School poets John Ashbery, Barbara Guest, Kenneth Koch, and James Schuyler, as well as experimental painters such as Willem de Kooning, Larry Rivers, and Jasper Johns. Their achievements are movingly celebrated in many of his poems, while at the same time he paid loving tribute to popular idols such as James Dean and Lana Turner.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fitting title, September 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Poems Retrieved (Paperback)

Frank O'Hara had a very definite conception of poetry (read the wonderful essay "Personism: a manifesto" included at the end of his Collected Poems). As a result of his convictions he often wrote a poem and gave it away immediately to a friend, acquaintance - whomever he had written it for, or about, or who he felt should have it.
This is all relevant becuase once his Collected Poems were published many people came forward with more of his poems that he had given them etc. (some of them on bar napkins - how wonderful!) These newly found poems are what comprise "Poems Retrieved."
Frank O'Hara is truly one of the most important and wonderful poets of this (or any) century and I'm happy that his influence is coming back into vogue amongst good poets.