Customer Reviews

Selected Poems

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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!

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.

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.