A review by ombudsman
The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara by Frank O'Hara

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 winter’s cold solace
and biting season of galas
to take over my nerves,
and from anger at time’s
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 coffee table.
And at night a truce
with Iran or Korea seems certain
while I am beaten to death
by a thug in a back bedroom.