The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara, by Frank O’Hara.

CONCEPT

For each of the prior readings I was able to take the entire selection and integrate it into a sort of overall impression that I was able to relate independently to my own experience and more explicitly to the theme of the class itself. I was surprised, then, when I came into class on Wednesday to discuss Frank O’Hara to hear Eric describe him as one of the more straightforward of the writers we’ve engaged. In fact, I found that O’Hara’s reading of his work played in class to support this. Unlike the Stein and Cummings readings, which were very self-conscious and pause-heavy, O’Hara read with candor and personality; his poems almost sounded like conversation. This was very interesting to me because in reading both the assigned poems and others I most often disoriented and confused.

Part of this, which I referred to in class, was a lack of obvious syntactic clues. These clues are abundant in Cummings; however weird the actual words or sentences may be, he provides clues in the cadence, the sound, and the visual shape of the poems… it seems like just about everything becomes clear with repetition. Gertrude Stein seems much closer to O’Hara, especially in Lifting Belly, but still there was the phrase itself, “lifting belly,” which acted as a sort of anchor or carriage return. However abstracted the poem might seem, I was always brought home to one visceral idea which seemed to provide a point of access.

Of course, comments in class gave me a number of ideas of how to approach O’Hara, as I was certain they would. It was interesting to note that these were more narrative than prosodic; that is, the poems yielded their secrets not by way of a sort of systematic analysis (eg. as a sonnet, as onomatopoeia, as invented words) but as a contextual perspective (eg. something written for a party (Poem Read at Joan Mitchell’s) or as a set of free associations (Second Avenue)).

Incorporating this knowledge and thinking back upon the poetry itself, there does seem to be a connection between the more straightforward poems I understood the first time through, such as Having a Coke with You, and those I really wanted to understand, but couldn’t like Easter.

On the page, Having a Coke with You offers some clues, but nothing that ought to be taken too far. There are two stanzas, left justified. The first is uninterrupted by any spatial device except breaks at the logical end of each line. The second has unusual breaks on the second and thirteenth lines; the subsequent line is indented to resume the line as if uninterrupted. If there were not these line breaks, the stanzas would be respectively ten and thirteen lines. Considering breaks, lines number ten and fifteen. I might venture that the shape suggests a consistency and fluidity of thought in the first stanza that is disrupted in the second. But if I’m drawing any narrative conclusions, they have to follow from the words themselves. In this sense, the poem follows its shape. The first stanza argues that the listener is more lovely than any number of romantic locales. The second, while not backing away from this claim, qualifies it by expressing others’ doubt, mentioning the single exception (Polish Rider), and finally claiming regret that others cannot share this experience. In other words, I “got” this poem because it has both an approachable meaning and interpretation and they happen to intersect.

Other poems, particularly Second Avenue and Easter are not so friendly. Second Avenue has enumerated “stanzas,” but only if a pagelong thing can be fairly called a stanza. Easter was similarly shaped, but lacked the numbered divides. Both poems lacked the interpretive advantage of Coke in that there was no coherent narrative, or even a continuous argument or description to follow. For all that, I enjoyed Easter more of the two because it seemed, in a way slightly reminiscent of Lifting Belly, to default to an essential question of decay; it was a pressing argument I didn’t find in Second Avenue.

These were, I thought, incidentally, the two toughest poems we read.

They do, however, have the same conversational or epistolary quality as his more straightforward poems. So I think, in reapproaching O’Hara, I might read try a more dialectic reading, considering different inflections, pauses, punctuation, enjambment, and most importantly, context.

For example, Easter might be considered as follows:

• The razzle dazzle maggots are summary.
• The razzle dazzle maggots are summery.
• The razzle dazzle maggots are a summary tattooing.
• Sammary tattooing my simplicity on the pitiable.
• Summery tattooing my simplicity on the pitiable.
• The razzle dazzle maggots are a summary tattooing of my simplicity on the pitiable.
• The razzle dazzle maggots are summary tattooing, my simplicity on the pitiable.

And so on.

Or, to try a shorter poem that was a real bugbear, Poem (Now the violets are all gone, the rhinoceroses, the cymbals):

• Now the violets are all gone. The rhinoceroses and cymbals are a grisly pale…
• Now the violets
• and

rhinoceroses are all gone. The cymbals are a grisly pale…

• … the cymbals a gristly pale…
• A grisly pale has settled over the stockyard where the fur flies…
• … is that of a bulldozer. In heat, stuck in the mud where a lilac…
• … is that of a bulldozer in heat. Stuck in the mud where a lilac…
• … where a lilac still scrawnily blooms and cries out “Walt!”
• … where a lilac still scrawnily blooms and cries out “Wait!“

Having such a variety of plausible options, that are at least consistent from line to line, and trying each on under different “circumstances” (a reflection on a painting or painter, a letter to a friend, a love poem, a love letter, a stream-of-consciousness recollection of a street) does not, most likely, yield a definitive reading. It does, however, allow a sense of tone and a subject specific and nuanced enough to be able to approach the poem as a whole entity. Which is what I’ve lacked with O’Hara up to this point.

I realize that this paper is more heavy on poetic terminology than my last two, and I don’t think it necessarily makes it a smarter paper. Nor do I think I ought to apologize for this. It’s more that I’m having a more difficult time with this material, so I’m pulling out the stops on anything that might get in the way of understanding the work. We did talk quite a bit about O’Hara’s artistic connections, both as a poet and a friend of painters. Given what I know of those movements, by “interpret” I’m not expecting to nail him down to a particular reading or understanding, but to find an approach that enables me to see and hear a shape in the poem more distinct and interesting than an arbitrary collection of words on a page. His choices seem too specific, nuanced, and crafted to be arbitrary.

All that said, I think I’ve still got a ways to go.

END OF POST.