Publishing multiple books of poetry and art criticism in his lifetime, Frank O'Hara (1926-1966) has left an impact on American poetic history. He is just as known for the spontaneity and imagery of his poems as he is for the spontaneous way he wrote them. His life was cut short by a tragic death, but O'Hara lives on in posthumously published poetry collections lovingly put together by his wide circle of friends and lovers.
Biography of Frank O’Hara
Francis Russell O’Hara was born in March of 1926 in Baltimore, Maryland. O’Hara would later be known by his nickname, Frank. His father, Russell O’Hara, and his mother, Katherine Broderick, concealed Frank’s real birth date when he was growing up as he had been conceived before his parents were married. Russell managed his family’s farm in Grafton, outside of Worcester, Massachusetts, where O’Hara spent the majority of his childhood.
O’Hara spent the majority of his adolescence focusing on the piano; he had aspirations of being a concert pianist as his profession. He attended classes at the New England Conservatory. Upon his graduation from high school, O’Hara served in the U.S. Navy for 2 years during World War II. After his honorable discharge from the navy, he attended Harvard University. He initially planned to major in music but eventually changed his course of studies to English. His first published poems appeared in the student magazine the Harvard Advocate.
O'Hara aboard the USS Nicholson, the ship he worked on during his navy years, Wikimedia commons
While at Harvard, O’Hara frequently traveled to New York City, where he became enmeshed in a group of poets and artists with whom he would form lifelong friendships and professional partnerships. These poets include John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, and Barbara Guest along with painters such as Jackson Pollock and William de Kooning.
O’Hara’s first professional, serious writing that gained attention after his graduation from Harvard was artistic criticism. He contributed to Art News, where he wrote about painting, poetry, and the state of modern American artistic culture. He began to work at the front desk of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and for the rest of his adult life, O’Hara would be involved with the museum, often as a curator or co-curator of specific exhibitions. O’Hara also attended graduate school at the University of Michigan, where he studied English Literature.
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is a museum located in New York City. The museum was highly influential in the collection and dissemination of modern art and is considered to be one of the most influential modern art museums in the world.
The publication of Donald Allen’s poetry anthology, The New American Poetry (1960) included poems by O’Hara, which brought attention to his poetic works. In 1964, O’Hara published his first collection, Lunch Poems. The popular reception of Lunch Poems established O’Hara as a leading voice in American Poetry in the mid-20th century.
Throughout his lifetime, O’Hara was known as an incredibly sociable, chatty individual. In 1959, he met Canadian ballet dancer Vincent Warren, a lifelong partner of O’Hara’s and the inspiration for many of his poems, including his famous love poems “Having a Coke with You” (1960) and “Poem (So many echoes in my head)” (1971).
While O’Hara wrote numerous poems and critical essays throughout his lifetime, many remained unpublished while he lived. O’Hara’s death was a sudden, shocking act that sent ripples throughout his community. Many of his works were published posthumously, including the collection of all of his poetry, The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara (1971).
Frank O’Hara’s cause of death
At the age of 40, O’Hara was fatally hit by a car on Fire Island beach in Long Island, New York. He died the following day at a hospital of a ruptured liver. The driver of the jeep, a 23-year-old local man, was not prosecuted, to the dismay of many of O’Hara’s friends. O’Hara is buried in a cemetery on Long Island.
Portrait of Frank O'Hara, Wikimedia commons
Poems by Frank O’Hara
Given that O’Hara’s life was cut short by the circumstances of his death, he did not publish much poetry or writing during his lifetime. Following his death, his friends and coworkers assembled much of the poetry he had within his home and published his work posthumously.
O’Hara published some poetry throughout his lifetime in various magazines and editorials; as a student, he published poems in the Harvard Advocate and he would later publish poetry professionally in magazines such as Poetry.
Some of his best-known poems include "Having a Coke with You" (1971), one of O'Hara's famous love poems about his partner, Vincent Warren. "The Day Lady Died" (1964) and "Poem [Lana Turner has collapsed!]" (1964) are examples of his poetry that detailed his response to current news stories.
Books by Frank O'Hara
Frank O'Hara published relatively few poetry collections during his life. His first poetry collections were published right after his graduation from Harvard in 1950, they include A City Winter and Other Poems (1951) and Oranges (1953). His 1964 collection, Lunch Poems, solidified his status as a popular, well-regarded poet in the American cultural sphere.
Following his death, The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara were published in 1971. At over 500-pages the volume included all of the poems that O’Hara had written and that his friends were able to find within his apartment and personal things. Amorous Nightmares of Delay, published in 1997, was a collection of plays and one-act productions that O’Hara had written during his lifetime.
Frank O’Hara’s Writing Style
O’Hara was famously characterized as a ‘poet among painters,’1 as his social circle was dominated mainly by Abstract Expressionist artists and O’Hara frequently drew inspiration from this group and the paintings they produced. His poetry is characterized by its colloquial, lively style. This is a result of the often-haphazard way in which O’Hara wrote his poetry—he was known for dashing off poems on the way to poetry readings where he was to perform, stashing receipts with half-written verses in his drawer, and pulling together essays while editors were on their way to collect them.
This discussion of his casual approach to poetry is not to diminish the skill with which he wrote. He jumped between images and used juxtaposition to add to the air of playful spontaneity that he cultivated in his poetry. This was aided by his use of enjambment, which was frequent. His lines ran into one another without punctuation and with unusual spacing; this added to his casual, conversational tone.
His poetry defies easy categorization; he was acquainted with all of the Abstract Expressionist painters in New York and his poetry is often similarly categorized as an Abstract Expressionist approach to poetry that attempted to meld the two mediums of painting and poem. He incorporates Surrealist elements in his poetry, using disparate images and relaying them in quick succession. Surrealism was a style popular in Europe during the Second World War; O’Hara’s take is a uniquely American version of Surrealism that incorporates elements of the movement with a blatantly American approach to language. His poetry reflected the tone of American speech patterns, and he used the same vocabulary that everyday Americans would use in their own conversations.
Enjambment is a poetic device where one line of poetry continues into the next without the use of punctuation to separate them.
Abstract Expressionism is an art form that developed in America in the 1940s and 1950s characterized by abstract artistic renderings meant to evoke strong emotions. Leading artists of the movement include Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko.
Surrealism is an artistic movement in both visual and literary art concerned with the expression of unconscious thoughts and strange, unnerving images.
O’Hara’s subject matter was varied, but his poetry often centered on experiences—walking around New York City, getting lunch with a friend viewing paintings at MoMA. Additionally, many of his poems were written in tribute to other famous artists. One of his best-known poems, “The Day Lady Died” (1959) was written as a narrative about O’Hara carrying out his daily routine when he learned from the newspaper that Billie Holiday had died. “For James Dean” (1956), as per the title, is about actor James Dean.
Here is an excerpt from an O'Hara poem that uses juxtaposition and enjambment in addition to Surrealist elements. The poem is titled "Seven Nine Seven" from his Collected Poems (1971).
A disgusting sun
trying desperately to look lonely
walks over the asphalt shivering sky
a bottle of bleach
when were you in Times Square
last do you miss it
perhaps a bat will turn into
several women on a lawn with their arms twined" (1-8)2
The images used in the poems are nonsensical and surreal such as "a disgusting sun" (1) or the notion of a bat turning into women on a lawn. He juxtaposes quickly and seemingly without reason from "the asphalt shivering sky" (3) immediately to "a bottle of bleach" (4) to asking a question "when were you in Times Square/last do you miss it" (5-6). Each line runs into the next without punctuation, his use of enjambment.
Frank O’Hara Quotes
“Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.” (37-40)3
This excerpt from the poem “Mayakovsky” (1957) included in a collection of O’Hara’s poems entitled Meditations in an Emergency (1957) reflects many of the unique aspects of O’Hara’s poetry. It uses enjambment, his stylistic word choice, and a focus on his own personal experience.
“I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the
world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s
in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together
for the first time” (13-16)4
In this excerpt from his poem “Having a Coke with You” O’Hara ruminates on romantic love, while also showing off his love for and knowledge of paintings. As an avid appreciator of art and a regular museum-goer, much of O’Hara’s poetry was directly inspired by works of art.
Polish Rider, the painting by Rembrandt referenced in O'Hara's poem, Wikimedia commons
Can you think of any other poems that were inspired by works of art? Why might a poet look to visual art for inspiration?
Frank O'Hara - Key takeaways
- Frank O'Hara (1926-1966) was an American poet, art critic, and curator.
- O'Hara grew up in Massachusetts and originally planned on pursuing a career as a pianist; his time at Harvard University made him change his mind and decide to be a writer, instead pursuing an English degree.
- O'Hara worked for the majority of his life as a curator or co-curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City; his passion for art is realized in his poetry.
- His poetic style was spontaneous, he was known for scribbling poems on receipts and losing them in his drawers.
- The style of his poetry was colloquial, image-rich, and playful.
1. Marjorie Perloff, Frank O'Hara: A Poet among Painters, 1977.
2. Frank O'Hara, "Seven Nine Seven," 1971.
3. Frank O’Hara, “Mayakovsky,” 1957.
4. Frank O’Hara, “Having a Coke with You,” 1971.
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