Frank O'Hara
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Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure in the New York School, an informal group of artists, writers, and musicians who drew inspiration from jazz,
surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
,
abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...
,
action painting Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical ...
, and contemporary
avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...
art movements. O'Hara's poetry is personal in tone and content, and has been described as sounding "like entries in a diary".American Council of Learned Societies. "Frank O'Hara" in ''American National Biography''. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) Poet and critic Mark Doty has said O'Hara's poetry is "urbane, ironic, sometimes genuinely celebratory and often wildly funny" containing "material and associations alien to academic verse" such as "the camp icons of movie stars of the twenties and thirties, the daily landscape of social activity in Manhattan, jazz music, telephone calls from friends". O'Hara sought to capture in his poetry the immediacy of life, feeling that poetry should be "between two persons instead of two pages." ''The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara'' edited by Donald Allen (Knopf, 1971), the first of several posthumous collections, shared the 1972 National Book Award for Poetry. Brad Gooch's ''City Poet'' is the first substantial biography on O'Hara.


Early life and education

Frank O'Hara, the son of Russell Joseph O'Hara and Katherine (née Broderick), was born on March 27, 1926, at
Maryland General Hospital University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus (formerly Maryland General Hospital) is a hospital in the downtown area of Baltimore, Maryland. The hospital was founded for teaching purposes in 1881 by a group of local doctors. The hospital ...
,
Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
and grew up in
Grafton, Massachusetts Grafton is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 19,664 at the 2020 census. The town consists of the North Grafton, Grafton, and South Grafton geographic areas, each with a separate ZIP Code. Incorporated ...
. He attended St. John's High School. He grew up believing his birthday was in June, when, in fact, he had been born in March—as his parents disguised his true date of birth because he had been conceived
out of wedlock Legitimacy, in traditional Western common law, is the status of a child born to parents who are legally married to each other, and of a child conceived before the parents obtain a legal divorce. Conversely, ''illegitimacy'', also known as ''b ...
. He studied piano at the
New England Conservatory The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a Private college, private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. The conservatory is located on Huntington Avenue along Avenue of the Arts (Boston), the Avenue of the Arts near Boston Symphony Ha ...
in Boston from 1941 to 1944 and served in the
U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...
in the South Pacific and Japan as a sonarman on the destroyer USS ''Nicholas'' during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
. With the funding made available to veterans he attended
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
, where artist and writer
Edward Gorey Edward St. John Gorey (February 22, 1925 – April 15, 2000) was an Americans, American writer, Tony Awards, Tony Award-winning costume designer, and artist, noted for his own illustrated books as well as cover art and illustration for book ...
was his roommate. O'Hara was heavily influenced by visual art and by contemporary music, which was his first love (he remained a fine piano player all his life and would shock new partners by suddenly playing music by
Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and Conducting, conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a compos ...
when visiting them). His favorite poets were Pierre Reverdy,
Arthur Rimbaud Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he s ...
,
Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé ( , ; ; 18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), pen name of Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French Symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools o ...
,
Boris Pasternak Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (30 May 1960) was a Russian and Soviet poet, novelist, composer, and literary translator. Composed in 1917, Pasternak's first book of poems, ''My Sister, Life'', was published in Berlin in 1922 and soon became an imp ...
, and
Vladimir Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky ( – 14 April 1930) was a Russian poet, playwright, artist, and actor. During his early, Russian Revolution, pre-Revolution period leading into 1917, Mayakovsky became renowned as a prominent figure of the Ru ...
. While at Harvard, O'Hara met
John Ashbery John Lawrence Ashbery (July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017) was an American poet and art critic. Ashbery is considered the most influential American poet of his time. Oxford University literary critic John Bayley wrote that Ashbery "sounded, in ...
and began publishing poems in the '' Harvard Advocate.'' Despite his love of music, O'Hara changed his major and graduated from Harvard in 1950 with a degree in English. He then attended the
University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...
in
Ann Arbor Ann Arbor is a city in Washtenaw County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851, making it the List of municipalities in Michigan, fifth-most populous cit ...
, where he won a
Hopwood Award The Hopwood Awards are a major scholarship program at the University of Michigan, founded by Avery Hopwood. Under the terms of the will of Avery Hopwood, a prominent American dramatist and member of the class of 1905 of the University of Michigan ...
and, in 1951, received a master's degree in English.


Early career

In the autumn of 1951, O'Hara moved into an apartment in New York City with
Joe LeSueur Joseph Madison LeSueur (September 15, 1924 – May 14, 2001) was an American poet and screenwriter. He is known as a lover of Frank O'Hara and the author of ''Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O’Hara: A Memoir.'' Life LeSueur grew up in Los A ...
, who was his roommate and sometime lover for the next 11 years. It was during this time that he began teaching at
The New School The New School is a Private university, private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for p ...
. O'Hara was active in the art world, working as a reviewer for ''
ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American art magazine, based in New York City. It covers visual arts from ancient to contemporary times. It is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. ''ARTnews'' has a readership of 180,000 in 124 co ...
'', and in 1960 was assistant curator of painting and sculpture exhibitions for the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
. He was a friend of the artists Norman Bluhm,
Mike Goldberg Mike Goldberg (born November 24, 1964) is an American Sports commentator, play-by-play commentator currently working with BYB Extreme Fighting Series and ProBox TV, both alongside color commentator Paulie Malignaggi. He is mainly known for his ...
,
Grace Hartigan Grace Hartigan (March 28, 1922 – November 15, 2008) was an American abstract expressionist painter and a significant member of the vibrant New York School of the 1950s and 1960s. Her circle of friends, who frequently inspired one another in t ...
,
Alex Katz Alex Katz (born July 24, 1927) is an American figurative artist known for his paintings, sculptures, and printmaking, prints. Since 1951, Katz's work has been the subject of more than 200 solo exhibitions and nearly 500 group exhibitions through ...
,
Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning ( , ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married pa ...
,
Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...
, and Larry Rivers.


Poetry

While O'Hara's poetry is generally
autobiographical An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life, providing a personal narrative that reflects on the author's experiences, memories, and insights. This genre allows individuals to share thei ...
, it tends to make observations about his life in New York, rather than exploring his past. In his introduction to ''The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara'', Donald Allen says, "that Frank O'Hara tended to think of his poems as a record of his life is apparent in much of his work."Frank O'Hara. ''The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara''. Ed. Donald Allen. University of California Press. 1995; O'Hara discussed this aspect of his poetry in a statement for Donald Allen's '' The New American Poetry'':
What is happening to me, allowing for lies and exaggerations which I try to avoid, goes into my poems. I don't think my experiences are clarified or made beautiful for myself or anyone else, they are just there in whatever form I can find them. . .My formal "stance" is found at the crossroads where what I know and can't get meets what is left of that I know and can bear without hatred. . .It may be that poetry makes life's nebulous events tangible to me and restores their detail; or conversely that poetry brings forth the intangible quality of incidents which are all too concrete and circumstantial. Or each on specific occasions, or both all the time.
His initial time in the Navy, during his basic training at Sampson Naval Training Center, in upstate New York, along with earlier years at St. John's High School, began to shape a distinguished style of solitary observation that would later inform his poems. Immersion in regimented daily routine, first at Catholic school, then in the Navy, enabled him to separate himself from situations and make witty, often singularly perceptive commentary. Sometimes he cataloged it for use in later writing, or, perhaps more often, put it into letters. This skill at scrutinizing and recording amid the bustle and churn of daily life would later be one of the important aspects that shaped O'Hara as an urban poet, writing off the cuff. Among his friends, O'Hara was known to treat poetry dismissively, as something to be done only in the moment. John Ashbery says he witnessed O'Hara "Dashing poems off at odd moments—in his office at the Museum of Modern Art, in the street at lunchtime, or even in a room full of people—he would then put them away in drawers and cartons and half forget them." In the summer of 1951, O'Hara read a manifesto in ''The Kenyon Review'' written by the poet, novelist and anarchistic social critic
Paul Goodman Paul Goodman (September 9, 1911 – August 2, 1972) was an American writer and public intellectual best known for his 1960s works of social criticism. Goodman was prolific across numerous literary genres and non-fiction topics, including the ...
. In the essay, Goodman argues that the postwar American "advanced guard" writers must articulate the deep-seated, personal disquiet felt across the culture but left unvoiced. The essay encouraged O'Hara to write poetry that was embarrassing in its directness, and even seen as hostile to literary standards then in place. O'Hara's poetry began to erase poetry's cautious border between what is public and what is private. In 1959, he wrote a mock manifesto (originally published in the magazine ''Yūgen'' in 1961) called ''Personism: A Manifesto'', in which he explains his position on formal structure: "I don't ... like rhythm,
assonance Assonance is the repetition of identical or similar phonemes in words or syllables that occur close together, either in terms of their vowel phonemes (e.g., ''lean green meat'') or their consonant phonemes (e.g., ''Kip keeps capes ''). However, in ...
, all that stuff. You just go on your nerve. If someone's chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don't turn around and shout, 'Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep.'" He says, in response to academic overemphasis on form, "As for measure and other technical apparatus, that's just common sense: if you're going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. There's nothing metaphysical about it." He claims that on August 27, 1959, while talking to LeRoi Jones, he founded a movement called Personism which may be "the death of literature as we know it." He says,
It does not have to do with personality or intimacy, far from it! But to give you a vague idea, one of its minimal aspects is to address itself to one person (other than the poet himself), thus evoking overtones of love without destroying love's life-giving vulgarity, and sustaining the poet's feelings toward the poem while preventing love from distracting him into feeling about the person.Frank O'Hara. "Personism: A Manifesto". ''The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara'' (edited by Donald Allen). University of California Press. 1995;
His poetry shows the influence of
abstract expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...
,
surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...
, Russian poetry, and poets associated with
French symbolism Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: *Symbol, any object or sign that represents an idea Arts *Artistic symbol, an element of a literary, visual, or other work of art that represents an idea ** Color symbolism, the use of colors within various c ...
. Ashbery says, "The poetry that meant the most to him when he began writing was either French – Rimbaud, Mallarmé, the
Surrealists Surrealism is an art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike scenes and id ...
: poets who speak the language of every day into the reader's dream – or Russian – Pasternak and especially Mayakovsky, for whom he picked up what
James Schuyler James Marcus Schuyler (November 9, 1923 – April 12, 1991) was an American poet. His awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1980 collection ''The Morning of the Poem''. He was a central figure in the New York School and is of ...
has called the 'intimate yell.'" As part of the New York School of poetry, O'Hara to some degree encapsulated the compositional philosophy of New York School painters. Ashbery says, "Frank O'Hara's concept of the poem as the chronicle of the creative act that produces it was strengthened by his intimate experience of
Pollock Pollock or pollack (pronounced ) is the common name used for either of the two species of North Atlantic ocean, marine fish in the genus ''Pollachius''. ''Pollachius pollachius'' is referred to as "pollock" in North America, Ireland and the Unit ...
's, Kline's, and de Kooning's great paintings of the late '40s and early '50s and of the imaginative realism of painters like Jane Freilicher and Larry Rivers." O'Hara was also influenced by
William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. His '' Spring and All'' (1923) was written in the wake of T. S. Eliot's '' The Waste Land'' (1922). ...
, so much so that he lists Williams (along with Hart Crane and Walt Whitman) as one of three poets who were "better than the movies." According to
Marjorie Perloff Marjorie Perloff (born Gabriele Mintz; September 28, 1931 – March 24, 2024) was an Austrian-born American poetry scholar and critic, known for her study of avant-garde poetry. Perloff was a professor at Catholic University, the University of ...
in her book ''Frank O'Hara, Poet among Painters'', he and Williams both use everyday language and simple statements split at irregular intervals. Perloff points out the similarities between O'Hara's "Autobiographia Literaria" and Williams's "Invocation and Conclusion". At the end of "Autobiographia Literaria", the speaker says, "And here I am, the/center of all beauty!/writing these poems!/Imagine!" Similarly, Williams at the end of "Invocation and Conclusion" says, "Now look at me!" These lines show a shared interest in the self as an individual who can only be himself in isolation. A similar idea is expressed in a line from Williams's "Danse Russe": "Who shall say I am not/ the happy genius of my household?"


Personal life

Frank O'Hara, who was gay, met
Joe LeSueur Joseph Madison LeSueur (September 15, 1924 – May 14, 2001) was an American poet and screenwriter. He is known as a lover of Frank O'Hara and the author of ''Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O’Hara: A Memoir.'' Life LeSueur grew up in Los A ...
in 1951, and the two maintained a relationship until 1965, living together on and off from 1955 to 1965. From 1959 to 1963, the two lived at 441 East 9th Street in the East Village. Known throughout his life for his extreme sociability, passion, and warmth, O'Hara had hundreds of friends and lovers throughout his life, many from the New York art and poetry worlds. Soon after arriving in New York, he was employed at the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
, selling postcards at the admissions desk, and began to write seriously. O'Hara met longtime partner Vincent Warren in the summer of 1959. Warren, a Canadian ballet dancer, was the inspiration for several of O'Hara's poems, including "Poem (A la Recherche d'Gertrude Stein)", "Les Luths", "Poem (So many echoes in my head)", and "Having a Coke With You". Warren died on October 25, 2017, 51 years after O'Hara's death.


Death

In the early morning hours of July 24, 1966, O'Hara was struck by a jeep on the
Fire Island Fire Island is the large center island of the outer barrier islands parallel to the South Shore of Long Island in the U.S. state of New York. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy once again divided Fire Island into two islands. Together, these two isl ...
beach, after the beach taxi in which he had been riding with a group of friends broke down in the dark. He died the next day at age 40 of a ruptured liver at Bayview Hospital in Mastic Beach, Long Island. Attempts to bring negligent homicide charges against the jeep's driver, 23-year-old Kenneth L. Ruzicka, were unsuccessful; many of O'Hara's friends felt the local police had conducted a lax investigation to protect one of their own locals. O'Hara was buried in Green River Cemetery on
Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...
. The painter Larry Rivers, a longtime friend and lover, delivered one of the eulogies, along with Bill Berkson, Edwin Denby, and René d'Harnoncourt.


In popular culture


In music

Morton Feldman Morton Feldman (January 12, 1926 – September 3, 1987) was an American composer. A major figure in 20th-century classical music, Feldman was a pioneer of indeterminacy in music, a development associated with the experimental New York School o ...
composed "For Frank O'Hara" (1973) for 7 instrumentalists. In
First Aid Kit A first aid kit or medical kit is a collection of supplies and equipment used to give First aid, immediate medical treatment, primarily to treat injuries and other mild or moderate medical conditions. There is a wide variation in the contents o ...
's song "To A Poet", there is the lyric, "But Frank put it best when he said 'you can't plan on the heart'", a reference to O'Hara's poem, "My Heart". In
Martha Martha (Aramaic language, Aramaic: מָרְתָא‎) is a Bible, biblical figure described in the Gospels of Gospel of Luke, Luke and Gospel of John, John. Together with her siblings Lazarus of Bethany, Lazarus and Mary of Bethany, she is descr ...
's song "1967, I Miss You, I'm Lonely", the lyric, "I look at you and I am confident that I'd rather look at you than all the portraits in existence in the world, except possibly O'Hara by Grace Hartigan," references both O'Hara's poem, "Having a Coke With You", and
Grace Hartigan Grace Hartigan (March 28, 1922 – November 15, 2008) was an American abstract expressionist painter and a significant member of the vibrant New York School of the 1950s and 1960s. Her circle of friends, who frequently inspired one another in t ...
's portrait of O'Hara.
Rilo Kiley Rilo Kiley ( ) is an American indie rock band based in Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1998, the band consists of Jenny Lewis, Blake Sennett, Pierre de Reeder, and Jason Boesel. The group released their debut album '' Take-Offs and Landing ...
's 2004 album '' More Adventurous'' is titled after a line in O'Hara's poem "Meditations in an Emergency": "Each time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous..." The title track references the same line: "I read with every broken heart, we should become more adventurous" Frankie Cosmos's music is influenced by O'Hara's works, visible in two of her albums, '' Zentropy'' and '' Next Thing''. Greta Kline has stated that her stage name derived from the poet. The song Frank O'Hara by the band
Sea Wolf (band) Sea Wolf is an American band led by Alex Brown Church, an indie folk musician based in Los Angeles, California, United States. History Church attended film school at NYU and was a founding member of a group called Irving (band), Irving in 199 ...
describes a relationship with the Poet.


In film

In the 2011 film '' Beastly'', the lovestruck main characters read O'Hara's poem "Having a Coke with You" aloud to each other.


In literature

O'Hara is a minor character in William Boyd's 2002 novel'' Any Human Heart.'' O'Hara's '' Lunch Poems'' is the basis of
Paul Legault Paul Legault ( ; born June 25, 1985) is a Canadian-American poet. Life Legault was born in Ottawa, Ontario, and raised in Tennessee. He graduated from the University of Southern California, where he obtained a BFA in screenwriting, and the Univ ...
's ''Lunch Poems 2''.


In television

In the season 1 episode of the HBO series ''
Bored to Death ''Bored to Death'' is an American comedy series that ran on HBO from September 20, 2009, to November 28, 2011. The show was created by author Jonathan Ames, and stars Jason Schwartzman as a fictional Jonathan Ames—a writer based in Brooklyn, ...
'', "The Case of the Missing Screenplay", the main character loses a screenplay written by
Jim Jarmusch James Robert Jarmusch ( ; born January 22, 1953) is an American film director, screenwriter and musician. He has been a major proponent of independent film, independent cinema since the 1980s, directing films such as ''Stranger Than Paradise'' ...
about the life of Frank O'Hara. In the last episode of the series ''
Normal People ''Normal People'' is a 2018 novel by the Irish author Sally Rooney. ''Normal People'' is Rooney's second novel, published after '' Conversations with Friends'' (2017). It was first published by Faber & Faber on 30 August 2018. The book became a ...
'', based on
Sally Rooney Sally Rooney (born 20 February 1991) is an Irish author and screenwriter. She has published four novels: ''Conversations with Friends'' (2017), ''Normal People'' (2018), ''Beautiful World, Where Are You'' (2021), and ''Intermezzo (novel), Interm ...
's novel of the same name, Connell's gift for Marianne's birthday is said to be a Frank O'Hara's collection of poetry. Several episodes of ''Mad Men'' (season 2) reference O'Hara's collection of poetry, ''Meditations in an Emergency''. The first episode shows a character reading from it over lunch in a bar (recalling O'Hara's 1964 collection '' Lunch Poems'') as does the last episode, which uses the book's title as its episode title. In the twelfth episode,
Don Draper Donald Francis "Don" Draper, born Richard "Dick" Whitman, is a fictional character and the protagonist of the AMC television series ''Mad Men'' (2007–2015), portrayed by Jon Hamm. At the beginning of the series, Draper is the charismatic yet en ...
finds his copy of ''Meditations in an Emergency'' in Anna Draper's home in California.


In plays

The poetry of Frank O'Hara features prominently in Rachel Bonds's 2017 play ''At the Old Place''.


Landmarks

On June 10, 2014, a plaque was unveiled outside one of O'Hara's New York City residences, at 441 East Ninth Street. Poets Tony Towle, who inherited the apartment from O'Hara, and Edmund Berrigan read his works at the event.


Bibliography

*


Books published during his lifetime

* ''A City Winter and Other Poems''. Two Drawings by Larry Rivers. (New York: Tibor de Nagy Gallery Editions, 1951 ic, i.e. 1952 * ''Oranges: 12 pastorals''. (New York: Tibor de Nagy Gallery Editions, 1953; New York: Angel Hair Books, 1969) * '' Meditations in an Emergency''. (New York: Grove Press, 1957; 1967) * ''Second Avenue''. Cover drawing by Larry Rivers. (New York: Totem Press in Association with Corinth Books, 1960) * ''Odes''. Prints by Michael Goldberg. (New York: Tiber Press, 1960) * '' Lunch Poems''. (San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books, The Pocket Poets Series (No. 19), 1964) * ''Love Poems'' ''(Tentative Title)''. (New York: Tibor de Nagy Gallery Editions, 1965)


Posthumous works

* ''In Memory of My Feelings'', commemorative volume illustrated by 30 U.S. artists and edited by Bill Berkson (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1967) * ''The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara''. Edited by Donald Allen with an introduction by John Ashbery (1st ed. New York: Knopf, 1971; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995) —shared the
National Book Award The National Book Awards (NBA) are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. ...
with Howard Moss, ''Selected Poems''"National Book Awards – 1972"
National Book Foundation The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established with the goal "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America." Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: ...
. Retrieved 2012-04-07.
(With essay by Katie Peterson from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)
* ''The Selected Poems of Frank O'Hara''. Edited by Donald Allen (New York: Knopf, 1974; Vintage Books, 1974) * ''Standing Still and Walking in New York''. Edited by Donald Allen (Bolinas, Calif: Grey Fox Press; Berkeley, Calif: distributed by Bookpeople, 1975) * ''Early Writing''. Edited by Donald Allen (Bolinas, Calif: Grey Fox; Berkeley: distributed by Bookpeople, 1977) * ''Poems Retrieved''. Edited by Donald Allen (Bolinas, Calif: Grey Fox Press; Berkeley, Calif: distributed by Bookpeople, 1977) * ''Selected Plays''. Edited by Ron Padgett, Joan Simon, and Anne Waldman (1st ed. New York: Full Court Press, 1978) * ''Amorous Nightmares of Delay: Selected Plays''. (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997) * ''Selected Poems''. Edited by Mark Ford (New York: Knopf, 2008) *''Poems Retrieved'' (
City Lights ''City Lights'' is a 1931 American synchronized sound film, sound romance film, romantic comedy drama, comedy-drama film written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a ...
, 2013) *'' Lunch Poems.'' 50th Anniversary Edition (
City Lights ''City Lights'' is a 1931 American synchronized sound film, sound romance film, romantic comedy drama, comedy-drama film written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. While the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a ...
, 2014)


Exhibitions and writings on art

*
Jackson Pollock Paul Jackson Pollock (; January 28, 1912August 11, 1956) was an American painter. A major figure in the abstract expressionist movement, Pollock was widely noticed for his "Drip painting, drip technique" of pouring or splashing liquid household ...
. (New York: George Braziller, Inc. 1959) * New Spanish painting and sculpture. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1960) * Robert Motherwell: with selections from the artist's writings. by Frank O'Hara (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1965) * Nakian. (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1966) * Art Chronicles, 1954–1966. (New York: G. Braziller, 1975)


On O'Hara

* ''Frank O'Hara: Poet Among Painters'' by Marjorie Perloff (New York: G. Braziller, 1977; 1st paperback ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979; Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, with a new introduction, 1998) * ''Frank O'Hara'' by Alan Feldman (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979 ... frontispiece photo of Frank O'Hara c. by Richard Moore) * ''Frank O'Hara: A Comprehensive Bibliography'' by Alexander Smith, Jr. (New York: Garland, 1979; 2nd print. corrected, 1980) * ''Homage to Frank O'Hara''. edited by Bill Berkson and Joe LeSueur, cover by Jane Freilicher (originally published as Big Sky 11/12 in April, 1978; rev. ed. Berkeley: Creative Arts Book Company, 1980) * ''Art with the touch of a poet: Frank O'Hara''. exhibit companion compiled by Hildegard Cummings (Storrs, Conn. : The William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, 1983 ... January 24-March 13, 1983) * ''Frank O'Hara: To Be True To A City'' edited by Jim Elledge (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990) * ''City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara'' by Brad Gooch (1st ed. New York: Knopf, 1993; New York: HarperPerennial, 1994) * ''In Memory of My Feelings: Frank O'Hara and American Art'' by Russell Ferguson (Los Angeles: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles / University of California Press, 1999) * ''Hyperscapes in the Poetry of Frank O'Hara: Difference, Homosexuality, Topography'' by Hazel Smith (Liverpool University Press, Liverpool, 2000) * ''Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O'Hara'' by Joe LeSueur (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003). * ''Frank O'Hara: The Poetics of Coterie'' by Lytle Shaw (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2006) * Also a Poet: Frank O'Hara, My Father, and Me by Ada Calhoun (New York: Grove Press, 2022)


Painting

* Alice Neel,
Frank O'Hara
', (1960), 85.7 x 40.6 x 2.5 cm, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution * Larry Rivers, ''O'Hara Nude with Boots'' (1954), 97" x 53"
Larry Rivers Foundation
*
Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, draftsman, and printmaker. Considered a central figure in the development of American postwar art, he has been variously associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and ...
, ''In Memory of My Feelings - Frank O'Hara'' (1961), 40 1/4" x 60", MCA, Chicago * Wynn Chamberlain, ''Poets (Clothed), Poets (Naked)'', (1964), Earl McGrath collection. * Alfred Leslie, a link to ''The Death Cycle,'' (1966), - The Death of Frank O'Har
Alfred Leslie’s The Killing Cycle
*
Grace Hartigan Grace Hartigan (March 28, 1922 – November 15, 2008) was an American abstract expressionist painter and a significant member of the vibrant New York School of the 1950s and 1960s. Her circle of friends, who frequently inspired one another in t ...

Frank O'Hara, 1926-1966
(1966), 80 1/8 x 80 in. (203.4 x 203.2 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Grace Hartigan.


See also

*
LGBT culture in New York City New York City has been described as the gay village, gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBTQ+ political sociology, sociopolitical ecosystem, and is home to one of the world's largest and most prominent LGBTQ+ populations. Br ...
*
List of LGBT people from New York City New York City has been described as the gay village, gay capital of the world and the central node of the LGBTQ+ political sociology, sociopolitical ecosystem. It is home to one of the world's largest and most prominent LGBTQ populations. LGBTQ ...


References


External links


Official website

Frank O'Hara Papers
in the Museum of Modern Art Archives
Frank O'Hara
at
Academy of American Poets The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outrea ...
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