The Last Avant-garde: The Making of the New York School of PoetsGreenwich Village, New York, circa 1951. Every night, at a rundown tavern with a magnificent bar called the Cedar Tavern, an extraordinary group of painters, writers, poets, and hangers-on arrive to drink, argue, tell jokes, fight, start affairs, and bang out a powerful new aesthetic. Their style is playful, irreverent, tradition-shattering, and brilliant. Out of these friendships, and these conversations, will come the works of art and poetry that will define New York City as the capital of world culture--abstract expressionism and the New York School of Poetry. A richly detailed portrait of one of the great movements in American arts and letters, "The Last Avant Garde covers the years 1948-1966 and focuses on four fast friends--the poets Frank O'Hara, James Schuyler, John Ashbery, and Kenneth Koch. Lehman brings to vivid life the extraordinary creative ferment of the time and place, the relationship of great friendship to great art, and the powerful influence that a group of visual artists--especially Jane Freilicher, Larry Rivers, and Fairfield Porter--had on the literary efforts of the New York School. The book will be both a definitive and lively view of a quintessentially American aesthetic and an exploration of the dynamics of creativity. |
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The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets David Lehman No preview available - 1999 |
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aesthetic Alfred American Poetry Anne artist Ashbery Papers Ashbery wrote Ashbery's poems Ashbery's poetry Auden avant-garde avant-garde art Barbara Guest beautiful Berrigan bery Bill Berkson Blaine called collaboration Collected Poems comic Courtesy critic Donald Allen dream essay Fairfield Porter feel Frank O'Hara French friends Greenberg happiness Harvard homosexual Houghton Library idea imagination irony Jackson Pollock James Schuyler Jane Freilicher jazz Joe Brainard Joe LeSueur John Ashbery Kenneth Koch Koch's poetry Kooning language Larry Rivers Letter lines literary lived Locus Solus look magazine Martory Modern Art movie Myers never night O'Hara wrote O'Hara's poems painter painting Paris parody play pleasure poet's poetic political portrait Press prose quoted remember Robert seems sense sestina stanza Surrealists T. S. Eliot talk things Tibor de Nagy tion told Trilling turned University verse walk wanted words writing York City York poets York School