Frank O'Hara (1926-66) is among the most delightful and radical poets of the twentieth century. He is celebrated for his apparently unpremeditated poems, autobiographical and immediate ('any time, any place'). This is not the whole O'Hara: he may have scribbled poems on serviettes, but others he worked on with intense concentration, creating sequences that are inexhaustibly nuanced, full of surprise, heartbreak and laughter. There are analogies between his work and that of the painters he championed, Pollock, Kline and de Kooning among them. He is resolutely metropolitan, and his metropolis is New York City. He brilliantly captured the pace and rhythms, quandaries and exhilarations, of its mid-twentieth-century life.
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Wonderful, original poems' He was an essential contact-man between the worlds of painting and poetry. And he suggested a rich and fascinating dialogue between them.' Eavan Boland. 'O'Hara's hip, glamorous, freewheeling self-celebrations both reflected and helped disseminate a new kind of confidence and daring in American poetry.' Mark Ford.
About the Author
FRANK O'HARA was born in Maryland in 1926, and studied music and then English at Harvard University. His first book of poems was published in 1952. He worked at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, edited Art News and wrote extensively on painting. He died in 1966 and most of his poetry was collected by Donald Allen and appeared posthumously.
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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.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Perfect Lunch Date,
This review is from: The Selected Poems of Frank O'Hara (Paperback)
It's not exactly pocket-sized, but this volume can be conveniently and inconspicuously carried to lunch uptown, midtown, downtown, or out of town. There is a great collection of poems here (no plays), from the short and sweet to the longer and sweeter. All set in beautiful type on nice, formal heavier paper and with the inclusion of "Personism: A Manifesto" for an introduction and the cover art by O'Hara's personal friend. The cover is more than just interesting, however, it really informs some of the questions about confessional poetry raised by O'Hara's work. Just look at it for awhile... By the way, if you haven't yet read Frank O'Hara's poetry, this volume is an excellent and accessible place to start. Grab a fork, a cup of coffee, and dig in!
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great collection.,
By I. Sondel "I. Sondel - lover of the arts" (Tallahassee, FL United States) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
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This review is from: The Selected Poems of Frank O'Hara (Paperback)
Dear Diary: I have fallen in love with a poet named Frank O'Hara. I started with "Lunch Poems," but needed more. This volume is divine. O'Hara sneaks up on you. His style is so simple, so conversational, that you often times are surprised by the sudden depth of feeling comminicated in a final phrase. I don't know enough about poetry to prattle on and on without betraying my ignornace in short order. However, I know what I like, I know what speaks to me. I know that Frank O'Hara was a great poet.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Words from the short life of a New York Poet,
By
This review is from: The Selected Poems of Frank O'Hara (Paperback)
Francis O'Hara was an American writer, poet and art critic. He was a member of the New York School of poetry. Known throughout his life for his extreme sociability, passion, and warmth, O'Hara had hundreds of friends and lovers throughout his life, many from the New York art and poetry worlds.
O'Hara was active in the art world, working as a reviewer for Artnews, and in 1960 was Assistant Curator of Painting and Sculpture Exhibitions for the Museum of Modern Art. He was also friends with the artists Willem de Kooning, Norman Bluhm, Larry Rivers and Joan Mitchell. In the early morning hours of July 24, 1966, O'Hara was struck by a dune buggy on the Fire Island beach. He died the next day of a ruptured liver. O'Hara was buried in Green River Cemetery on Long Island. While O'Hara's poetry is generally autobiographical, it tends to be based on his observations of New York life rather than exploring his past. Among his friends, O'Hara was known to treat poetry dismissively, as something to be done only in the moment. n 1959, he wrote a mock manifesto called "Personism: A Manifesto." In it he explains his position on formal structure: "I don't ... like rhythm, assonance, all that stuff. You just go on your nerve. O'Hara's poetry shows the influence of Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, Russian poetry, and poets associated with French Symbolism. As part of the New York School of poetry, O'Hara to some degree encapsulated the compositional philosophy of New York School painters.This interaction between poet and painter is most evident in the poem "Why I am Not A Painter", in which O'Hara compares the process of writing a poem called "Oranges" with a description of his friend Mike Goldberg's creation of a painting entitled "Sardines". Neither work in the end contains a reference to its title. O'Hara was also influenced by William Carlos Williams.
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