Digressions On Some Poems By Frank Ohara

An unprecedented eyewitness account of the New York School, as seen between the lines of O'Hara's poetry Joe LeSueur lived with Frank O'Hara from 1955 until 1965, the years when O'Hara wrote his greatest poems, including "To the Film Industry in Crisis," "In Memory of My Feelings," "Having a Coke with You," and the famous Lunch Poems—so called because O'Hara wrote them during his lunch break at the Museum of Modern Art, where he worked as a curator. (The artists he championed include Jackson Pollock, Joseph Cornell, Grace Hartigan, Jane Freilicher, Joan Mitchell, and Robert Rauschenberg.) The flowering of O'Hara's talent, cut short by a fatal car accident in 1966, produced some of the most exuberant, truly celebratory lyrics of the twentieth century. And it produced America's greatest poet of city life since Whitman. Alternating between O'Hara's poems and LeSueur's memory of the circumstances that inspired them, Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O'Hara is a literary commentary like no other—an affectionate, no-holds-barred memoir of O'Hara and the New York that animated his work: friends, lovers, movies, paintings, streets, apartments, music, parties, and pickups. This volume, which includes many of O'Hara's best-loved poems, is the most intimate, true-to-life portrait we will ever have of this quintessential American figure and his now legendary times.

In this intimate portrait, an unprecedented eyewitness account of New York City life and talent is revealed between the lines of Frank O'Hara's poetry. of photos.

The first new selection of O’Hara’s work to come along in several decades. In this “marvellous compilation” (The New Yorker), editor Mark Ford reacquaints us with one of the most joyous and innovative poets of the postwar period.

Available for the first time in paperback, The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara reflects the poet's growth as an artist from the earliest dazzling, experimental verses that he began writing in the late 1940s to the years before his accidental death at forty, when his poems became increasingly individual and reflective.

This carefully crafted ebook collection is formatted for your eReader with a functional and detailed table of contents: Meditations in an Emergency: To the Harbormaster The eager note on my door... To the Film industry in Crisis Poem: "At night Chinamen jump" Blocks Les Etiquette jaunes Aus einem April River Poem: "There I could never be a boy" On Rachmaninoff's Birthday The Hunter For Grace, After a Party On Looking at "La Grande Jatte," the Czar Wept Anew Romanze, or The Music Students The Three-Penny Opera A Terrestrial Cuckoo Jane Awake A Mexican Guitar Chez Jane Two Variations Ode Invincibility Poem in January Meditations in an Emergency For James Dean Sleeping On The Wing Radio On Seeing Larry Rivers' "Washington Crossing the Delaware" at the Museum of Modern Art For Janice and Kenneth to Voyage Mayakovsky Lunch Poems: Music Alma On Rachmaninoff's Birthday I watched an armory On the Way to the San Remo 2 Poems from the Ohara Monogatari A Step Away from Them Cambridge Instant coffee with slightly sour cream Three Airs Image of the Buddha Preaching Is It Dirty The Day Lady Died Wouldn't it be funny Khrushchev is coming on the right day! Naphtha Personal Poem Adieu to Norman, Bon Jour to Joan and Jean-Paul Rhapsody Hotel Particulier Cornkind How To Get There A Little Travel Diary Five Poems Ave Maria Pistachio Tree at Chateau Noir At Kamin's Dance Bookshop Steps Mary Desti's Ass St. Paul and All That Memoir of Sergei O . . . . Yesterday Down at the Canal Poem en Forme de Saw For the Chinese New Year & For Bill Berkson Lana Turner Has Collapsed! Galanta Fantasy Other Poems: Yesterday Down at the Canal Noir Cacadou A Doppelgänger Green things are flowers too Entombment Today A Slow Poem V.R. Lang Animals Spleen Did You See Me Walking By The Buick Repairs? In Gratitude to Masters Hate Is Only One Of Many Responses Suppose that grey tree Steps Ann Arbor Variations Having A Coke With You At Joan's 1951 Melancholy Breakfast Digression On Number 1, 1948 A City Winter Poised and cheerful A Pathetic Note As Planned...

Susan Aizenberg uses a range of techniques in her newest collection of poetry to explore contemporary daily life in a difficult world. She critiques gender, grief, culture, and the myriad experiences that define us. But even when grappling with old wounds, a strain of romance runs throughout the book, reminding readers that it’s between the love and the grief that we’ll find the moments worth being shared and savored.

A reissue of this classic, essential companion to Frank O'Hara's Collected Poems, with a new introduction by Bill Berkson.