Frank O’Hara by Ciaran Bankwalla

Frank O’Hara

BY CIARAN BANKWALLA ILLUSTRATED BY HUBERT WINDAL

The New York School emerged during the 1950s, at a time when America had risen to a “new power on the world stage” in the wake of World War II (1939- 45). Painters who embodied the “avant-garde spirit” were no longer led by the domineering influences of artists from the School of Paris and poets who were closely linked with the painters became known as the New York School of poets. The poets were placed into new positions of power – which allowed them to challenge the doctrines of the literary establishment in the 1950s. Poets preceding the New York poets in the early 1950s varied in terms of a serious nature, the trauma tinged Confessionals and the Beats generation, the latter of which encompassed a rejection of narrative values and in some cases, heightened tones of aggression. It could be argued, then, that The New York School of poets emerged as a reaction to the formerly mentioned movements. But this would not be entirely accurate. Rather, the New York School of Poets worked in an abstract and witty style that combined literary and artistic influences to create a new post-war aesthetic. The poetry which emerged from poets like Frank O’Hara was less of a reaction to the writers before him, but more of an observation.

As with the Beats Generation, the New York School of Poets had an immediate, direct manner embedded in their style – writing as outsiders. But poets like Frank O’Hara distanced themselves from the overt aggression seen with the Beats generation, and they were less likely to use their art as a protest. The New York poets used an abstract and witty style, incorporating ironic humour and Hollywood-esque gossip. On the

surface, Frank O’Hara’s work appeared as if it was casually put together – and it appeared as an art form which contained an inclination towards parody and pop culture. But O’Hara’s casual poetics were not merely reduced to simplistic pop-poetry. To the casual reader, his poetry was an illusion; of a deep sea disguised as shallow water.

O’Hara’s ‘I do this I do that’ poetry is fuelled by his style. The use of enjambment in A Step Away from Them represents the image of a poet walking casually through the city of New York. The pacing is calm, and the poem itself is a constellation of poetic images, observed like a cruising eye drifting down the street. His poems avoid a systematic poetic structure (rhyme, meter), flowing like a stream of consciousness – rarely using fall stops and commas to break apart the lines. This, of course, affects the rhythm – of which O’Hara appears to oppose: “I don’t even like rhythm, assonance, all that stuff.” Instead, O’Hara is inspired by free form jazz and improv theatre. His poems reflect the dream like images of French Surrealism. But the absence of particular poetic convention does not take away the quality of his work. Moreover, O’Hara was able to create a casual style of poetry because he was acutely aware of the techniques. The way in which O’Hara thought about his technique can be seen in his art criticism, in which Hampson states that O’Hara was “a deeply committed art critic” and one who “lingered lovingly over the question of the artist’s technique”. This can be seen in Porter Paints a Picture – where O’Hara writes of canvas size and the blending of colours. Furthermore, the writer’s awareness of poetical convention allowed him to effectively reject theories of poetry: claiming that the “philosophical reduction of reality to a dealable-with system” was counterproductive; adding that it “distorted” the reward of poetry, and could in fact be seen as an illness.

But O’Hara was not interested in the permanence of text. The free flowing, spontaneous framework reveals O’Hara’s “casual attitude to his poems” with critics citing that his vast collection of published poetry contains “only a third of his work”, often stuffed in drawers or collected together in scribbled stacks. This is mixed with his inclusion of Hollywood-esque gossip; lines which mirror disposable chat and one with less of a timeless feel. Additionally, he churned out poetry – writing several poems a day, referring to writing as playing the typewriter. His technique is fast, jovial, fun; and he viewed “the speed and spontaneity of composition as integral” to his work. For O’Hara – poetry was not about the published masterpiece. It was about the given moment and the experience. The skill in his craft was the act of writing poetry

– and the method of marketing and publishing was nothing more than a careless afterthought. “He was notoriously careless about marketing and even preserving his work” .

Likewise, language is an important part of O’Hara’s exploration of casual poetics. “His language is often casual, relaxed in diction, yet it presses forward with a kind of breathless urgency” The use of ‘I guess’ (A Step Away from Them Line 8) adds to the apparent casual tone of the poem – despite the hours and days which were probably spent designing it. Through such a simple insertion, ‘I guess’ allows the poem to achieve simplicity. Additionally, the blurb for Lunch Poems is carefully crafted in its simplicity and humour. “While never forgetting to eat Lunch his favourite meal.”

Before his poetry, O’Hara was known for his personality. “OHara’s first real accomplishment was his personality, which became famous long before his poems did.” When critics write of his personality, it resembles his casual poetry; “practically a work of art” and “improvised, self-revising, full of feints” – which almost allowed his poetry to act as a transcript of himself. Not only does his work incorporate his jest and personal interests – but they provide the reader with an insight into his lifestyle. “I have been to lots of parties and acted perfectly disgraceful”. Consequently, O’Hara’s poetry appears as somewhat auto-biographical and much of it is an observation of what is happening to him in the moment, “what is happening to me.” O’Hara’s work is a simplicity of the given moment and separates him from the Confessionals, who relied on a visceral manner and violent adjectives. From the term ‘I do this, I do that’ – the reader learns of O’Hara’s routine. It is a spontaneous, genuine approach of how he stumbles across discoveries, observations and images. Likewise, his work is prominently written in the first person, which provides the poetry with a personal tone. Terrence Diggory refers to such a journey as “the casual movement through the events of a day or the fluid alternation between concrete, even surreal, imagery and abstract, philosophical reflection” Such simplicity loads O’Hara’s work with a feel so personable – that they read like diary entries: “It is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine”.

Commercial signs and products are significant in O’Hara’s poetry. As a speaker who walks across a commercialised city – it makes sense that he would observe glittering neon signs and famous faces plastered on posters. ‘JULIET’S CORNER’ (A Step Away from Them line 28-29) is capitalised to create the physical image of a large sign. Likewise, O’Hara learns of the Lana Turner controversy (the reference to a scandal in which a Hollywood

actress’ lover was stabbed to death by her daughter) when he suddenly sees a headline ‘LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!’. (Lana Turner has collapsed line 11). But the eruptions of a media scandal are condensed into headlines – and the speaker is not physically engulfed in the drama. He is merely passing by, witnessing fragments of the story as a piece of the city. Where some aspects of popular consumerism feature heavily, O’Hara uses other names with more subtlety. Having a Coke with you is about experiencing a given moment – but the use of a popular fizzy drink feels like a modernised version of product placement in a movie; adding to the glitzy image of prevalent advertising rather than prestigious literature. Coca-cola also features in A Step Away from Them – which adds to the poem’s commercial aspect. The image is rendered down to an appearance of desirability; the language that adverts trade in. Likewise, the “skirts flipping” (line 9) in A Step Away from Them reads as a tribute to Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe.

O’Hara is fundamentally a city poet – and in that sense he embodies the rush of New York City. “The only way to be quiet is to be quick” (Frank O’Hara Poetry) states O’Hara. He was interested in arresting time; seizing a moment and exploring the surroundings like a painting. “Cats playing in the sawdust” (A Step Away from Them line 14) and labourers eating sandwiches presents the reader with an image – one that suddenly stops when “everything honks” and the motion of the city is revived.

I have previously cited Woolf’s stream of consciousness as one of O’Hara’s influences in the development of poetry – and such modernity echoes in his tour of the city. In A Step Away from Them the millions of relations in the city hum across the poem. Citizens blur together, amassed as a composite of feeling and dialogue; where individual storylines are explored as the speaker walks past each individual. It becomes a modernist city, where memories are placed into the banal: the image of a neon sign for example makes the speaker think of something else, “JULIET’S CORNER. Giulietta Masina, wife of Federico Fellini.” (A Step Away from Them lines 28-30). Likewise, moments which mirror Mrs. Dalloway occurs in various points of the poem – a scene in everything happens in an instant and then clicks pack to the present. It becomes a dense constellation of experience in the moment.

As O’Hara casually drifts across the city – his free-flowing style becomes a distraction into death. O’Hara’s poetry is subdued in tranquillity; eating lunch, reading the newspaper and relaxing. But it is suddenly shaken by the interruption of death: ‘First

Bunny died’ (A Step Away from Them page 37). O’Hara’s imagery suddenly forces the speaker to recall the passing away of a friend – a device which parallel’s Woolf’s stream of consciousness. The casual poetics are disrupted by death, in the same way death eclipses Clarissa’s party in Mrs. Dalloway. The congenial environments are an effective backdrop for a sudden loss because it jolts the reader; and stands out by wedging a contrasting element into the mundane. Even the title of A Step Away from Them features the underlying theme of mortality: for every observation that O’Hara makes, for every step he takes – death is only a ‘Step Away’. For O’Hara, casual poetics is not just about triviality, it’s about death.

I previously mentioned that O’Hara was not interested in a “permanent final text”. This correlates with his experience of death; watching those he loved and those he admired, pass away. Death is the physical removal of a person; the end to a life, and a concept which reminds O’Hara that there is a limit to how long one person can live for. There is a parallel, then, with a person’s limited mortality – and the permanence of O’Hara’s own work.

The Russian Poet Vladimir Mayakovsky was reportedly one of O’Hara’s favourite poets – and it is from Mayakovsky that O’Hara may have been influenced by the “intimate yell”, a device which enables O’Hara to convey powerful meaning and imagery into the reader’s mind while presenting it in an every-day, conversational language. It is a type of text which requires close reading – and one where skimming the surface voids it of value. This was not detectable by every reader. An O’Hara poetry reading was once interrupted by the drunken jeering of Beats poet Jack Kerouac, who claimed O’Hara was ruining American poetry. “That’s more than you ever did for it” responded O’Hara. The exchange is an apt reflection of not only O’Hara’s wit, nor the strength of his work – but of the scepticism some readers initially had. Perhaps it is easy to see why some critics and writers were dubious of O’Hara’s work. His methods were almost viewed as slap-dash – dosed in a blasé attitude towards publication, but that did not mean his poetry was without meaning. As I have explained, it is through O’Hara’s knowledge of poetic device that he was able to remove the conventions of it from his work. His abilities to explore death, arrest time and scan the psyche of a city were disguised; hidden behind a veil of casual poetry. It is through the mode of casual poetics that the reader is able to fully experience the value of O’Hara’s ‘I do this I do that’ poetry.