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jonfaith's review against another edition
4.0
so come the winds into our lives and last
longer than despair's sharp snake, crushed before it conquered
so marvelous is not just a poet's greenish namesake
and we live outside his garden in pure tempestuous rights
Frank O'Hara was a sensual man. His appetites and appreciations are rather evident. Emblazoned, if you will. This massive tome affords the reader a vantage, a portal to a life one of both privilege and scorn. It is a cultured and urban window: the natural world arrives largely through sand in the poet's swim trunks. The content is very uneven in form and likely quality. It is this erratic quality which makes all the more autobiographical, regardless of such violating accepted critical standards. I kept leering, looking for Gotham cultural overlaps with Arendt and McCarthy. It was a fascinating experience, very emotive even when O'Hara is providing a "I did this and then I did that" sort of lyrical exercise.
And someone you love enters the room
and says wouldn't
you like the eggs a little
different today?
And when they arrive they are
just plain scrambled eggs and the warm weather
is holding.
I feel enriched by this. Despite a certain aversion to the dedicated composer I felt O'Hara's celebratory poems in honor of Rachmaninov's birthday to be especially effective paens to creation. There is much about music and painting. There is also a reverence to his fellow poets and authors. Pasternak especially is a force to behold and the essay regarding the Russian poet such should be better know.
longer than despair's sharp snake, crushed before it conquered
so marvelous is not just a poet's greenish namesake
and we live outside his garden in pure tempestuous rights
Frank O'Hara was a sensual man. His appetites and appreciations are rather evident. Emblazoned, if you will. This massive tome affords the reader a vantage, a portal to a life one of both privilege and scorn. It is a cultured and urban window: the natural world arrives largely through sand in the poet's swim trunks. The content is very uneven in form and likely quality. It is this erratic quality which makes all the more autobiographical, regardless of such violating accepted critical standards. I kept leering, looking for Gotham cultural overlaps with Arendt and McCarthy. It was a fascinating experience, very emotive even when O'Hara is providing a "I did this and then I did that" sort of lyrical exercise.
And someone you love enters the room
and says wouldn't
you like the eggs a little
different today?
And when they arrive they are
just plain scrambled eggs and the warm weather
is holding.
I feel enriched by this. Despite a certain aversion to the dedicated composer I felt O'Hara's celebratory poems in honor of Rachmaninov's birthday to be especially effective paens to creation. There is much about music and painting. There is also a reverence to his fellow poets and authors. Pasternak especially is a force to behold and the essay regarding the Russian poet such should be better know.
m___p's review against another edition
5.0
I could open this book any day and get sucked in for hours finding new poems that impress me. At this point it's more than a little basic to say you like Frank O'Hara's poetry, but I think this definitive collection, with all his duds and ingenious moments included, makes a compelling case that he lives up to the hype.
shgmclicious's review against another edition
"What his work has always had to say to me, I guess, is to be more keenly interested while I'm still alive. And perhaps this is the most important thing art can say."
It took me a little over a year to finish reading this, as he's really only suitable for reading while you're in certain moods. Or at least that was the case for me. And I can't really say what that mood is, except that pick him up and see if you find yourself really interested in the rambling or really turned off by it, and go with that, but when the mood is right, his fluidity and stream of consciousness and name dropping and linguistic play should really get you. But I think this is the last time I read a huge collected works instead of a collection at a time, as it was meant to be read when it was originally published.
It took me a little over a year to finish reading this, as he's really only suitable for reading while you're in certain moods. Or at least that was the case for me. And I can't really say what that mood is, except that pick him up and see if you find yourself really interested in the rambling or really turned off by it, and go with that, but when the mood is right, his fluidity and stream of consciousness and name dropping and linguistic play should really get you. But I think this is the last time I read a huge collected works instead of a collection at a time, as it was meant to be read when it was originally published.
lisa_nog's review against another edition
3.0
For me this is a real mixed bag. Some of the poems are absolutely brilliant, some not so much. It's a complete body of work, so it stands to reason that there would be some real clunkers.
This absolute gem from Mayakovsky is making the rounds right now:
Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.
Highlights for me:
To My Dead Father
Animals
To A Poet
Spleen
Meditations in an Emergency
A Hill
This absolute gem from Mayakovsky is making the rounds right now:
Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.
Highlights for me:
To My Dead Father
Animals
To A Poet
Spleen
Meditations in an Emergency
A Hill
genderterrorist's review against another edition
2.0
I could not finish this. And it sucks. I've called myself a fan of Frank O'Hara for years, having read scattered poems of his throughout those years, ones that resonated with me.
To this day, Frank O'Hara remains the only poet who has ever written a love poem I actually liked (Having a Coke with You).
But after 200 pages, I am not so sure I can call myself a fan anymore. The language is so outdated even by the standards of the era -- at times, he comes across as outright pretentious. So many lines I had to read again and again and again, some poems I just skipped.
This was disappointing, to say the least. I read all I could. But I can't go on.
To this day, Frank O'Hara remains the only poet who has ever written a love poem I actually liked (Having a Coke with You).
But after 200 pages, I am not so sure I can call myself a fan anymore. The language is so outdated even by the standards of the era -- at times, he comes across as outright pretentious. So many lines I had to read again and again and again, some poems I just skipped.
This was disappointing, to say the least. I read all I could. But I can't go on.
rebecca_oneil's review against another edition
4.0
In college I became obsessed with the poem "Why I Am Not A Painter":
Why I Am Not a Painter
I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,
for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.
But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.
Why I Am Not a Painter
I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,
for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.
But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.
bmarchman's review against another edition
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I have tried fairly unsuccessfully to add poetry to my intake of books. But when I went to a pride month free library hosted by Aesop, and saw the cover of this book, I was intrigued. While it was still a bit arduous (and challenging!) for me to fully get into the swing of reading poetry, O’Hara’s poetry pushed me along.
Given these are his selected works, so many of these poems are successful. I won’t say every single one resonated with me, but so much of the allure is how personal O’Hara’s poetry is. To me the value of this collection is the snapshot it provides of a gay poet living and working in NYC in the 1950’s and early 60’s when so much creative activity was taking place.
So for those scared to jump into poetry I would recommend this volume. Not only are the poems beautiful but they also give us a glimpse into a life cut far too short and a place and time lost to history.
Given these are his selected works, so many of these poems are successful. I won’t say every single one resonated with me, but so much of the allure is how personal O’Hara’s poetry is. To me the value of this collection is the snapshot it provides of a gay poet living and working in NYC in the 1950’s and early 60’s when so much creative activity was taking place.
So for those scared to jump into poetry I would recommend this volume. Not only are the poems beautiful but they also give us a glimpse into a life cut far too short and a place and time lost to history.
nichecase's review against another edition
5.0
Just an absolutely monumental work - there is so much to love about Frank. I've been an admirer of O'Hara (& New York School poetry) for years, like everyone in the world without properly sitting down and reading it (I was making my way through Ashbery's Selected earlier this year but I've misplaced it somewhere...) This makes the charm, magnetism & resources of Frank's poetry crystal clear. Yes, not every poem is a hit - but I was shocked by how much this collection offered, even today, even outside of the classic poems ('Having a Coke with You', 'The Day Lady Died', 'Meditations in an Emergency', 'Why I am Not a Painter'...)
October
Summer is over,
that moment of blindness
in a sunny wheelbarrow
aching on sand dunes
from a big melancholy
about war headlines
and personal hatreds.
Restful boredom waits
for the winterЃEЂЃEs cold solace
and biting season of galas
to take over my nerves,
and from anger at timeЃEЂЃEs
rough passage I fight
off the future, my friend.
Is there at all anywhere
in this lavender sky
beside the UN Building
where I am so little
and have dallied with love,
a fragment of the paradise
we see when signing treaties
or planning free radio stations?
If I turn down my sheets
children start screaming through
the windows. My glasses
are broken on the co
October
Summer is over,
that moment of blindness
in a sunny wheelbarrow
aching on sand dunes
from a big melancholy
about war headlines
and personal hatreds.
Restful boredom waits
for the winterЃEЂЃEs cold solace
and biting season of galas
to take over my nerves,
and from anger at timeЃEЂЃEs
rough passage I fight
off the future, my friend.
Is there at all anywhere
in this lavender sky
beside the UN Building
where I am so little
and have dallied with love,
a fragment of the paradise
we see when signing treaties
or planning free radio stations?
If I turn down my sheets
children start screaming through
the windows. My glasses
are broken on the co
sabretoothdream's review against another edition
5.0
What is more beautiful than night
and someone in your arms
that's what we love about art
it seems to prefer us and stays
and someone in your arms
that's what we love about art
it seems to prefer us and stays