City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'HaraCity Poet is the first, and will stand as the definitive, biography of Frank O'Hara, the poet who was at the very heart of New York's literary and artistic life during the 1950s and 1960s. At that historic turning point when the art world's center had shifted from the Paris of Picasso to the New York of Pollock and de Kooning, O'Hara was a catalytic figure embracing the city as his muse. "His presence and poetry made things go on around him", his friend the poet Kenneth Koch has said. And this book brings it all to life: the late nights at the Cedar bar with Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Juan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, Jackson Pollock; the poetry readings at the Living Theatre with Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, LeRoi Jones, or at galleries with O'Hara's fellow poets of the New York School - John Ashbery, James Schuyler, and Barbara Guest. Here are the openings at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery or at the Museum of Modern Art, where O'Hara brilliantly curated one-man shows of the work of Robert Motherwell, David Smith, and Franz Kline. And, here, above all, is the genesis of his poems - often dashed off in a crowded banquette at the Cedar bar - poems whose special quality Allen Ginsberg has perfectly expressed: "He taught me to really see New York for the first tinge. It was like having Catullus change your view of the Forum in Rome". City Poet follows O'Hara from his insular Catholic childhood, to his service in the Navy during World War II, to Harvard, to his great New York years - wherever he was, he was a magnet. "Right away", de Kooning has said, "he was at the center of things, and he did not bulldoze. There was a good-omen feeling about him". O'Hara's presence atparties became so coveted that, according to Helen Frankenthaler, invitations often bore the written promise, "Frank will be there". In this book, Gooch tells the unforgettable story that was suddenly cut short on July 25, 1966, when O'Hara, just turning forty and at the height of his powers, was struck down by a jeep on the beach at Fire Island. His funeral in Green River Cemetery in Springs, Long Island, marked for many the end of the party which had been the fifties art world. This biography celebrates the life of one of the great American poets of the twentieth century. |
From inside the book
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Page 120
... writing to push out to feelings of nonsense , fun , parody , or beauty , rather than down to confessional ut- terances . Ciardi occasionally caught some of his excesses in such mar- ginal notes as " word - bog " ( at the line " the ...
... writing to push out to feelings of nonsense , fun , parody , or beauty , rather than down to confessional ut- terances . Ciardi occasionally caught some of his excesses in such mar- ginal notes as " word - bog " ( at the line " the ...
Page 187
... writing about his friends . But Goodman , in an article titled " Advance - Guard Writing , 1900-1950 " in The Kenyon Review of Summer 1951 , argued that the wisest move for the avant - garde in the present " shell - shocked " society ...
... writing about his friends . But Goodman , in an article titled " Advance - Guard Writing , 1900-1950 " in The Kenyon Review of Summer 1951 , argued that the wisest move for the avant - garde in the present " shell - shocked " society ...
Page 438
... writing for a few years was not necessarily a disas- trous sign for his poetry . Rilke had once stopped writing for twelve years . But it was disastrous for his sense of happiness . O'Hara was invariably unhappy about not writing . As ...
... writing for a few years was not necessarily a disas- trous sign for his poetry . Rilke had once stopped writing for twelve years . But it was disastrous for his sense of happiness . O'Hara was invariably unhappy about not writing . As ...
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Allen Ginsberg American artists ballet Bill Berkson Brodey Bunny called Charron City death Donald Allen drinking Eliot House father favorite feel felt Fizdale FOH to Ashbery FOH to family FOH to Warren Fondren Francis Frank O'Hara friends friendship Gallery going Gorey Grace Hartigan Grafton Harvard Homage homosexual interview with Hartigan J. J. Mitchell James Schuyler Jane Freilicher Joe LeSueur John Ashbery Kenneth Koch Kooning Lament and Chastisement Larry Rivers later LeSueur letter from FOH living look Maureen O'Hara Michael Goldberg Modern Art mother movie Museum of Modern Myers Navy never night O'Hara wrote Ode to Michael Osgood painters painting party Philip O'Hara piano play poems poetry Pollock Rasmussen recalls remember Rivers's says Schuyler Second Avenue seemed sexual sort Southgate Street summer talk thing titled Tony Towle Vincent Warren walking wanted Warhol writing written York young poets