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Frank O'Hara
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Frank O'Hara Poems
- Why I Am Not A Painter I am not a painter, I am a poet. Why?...
- Morning I've got to tell you how I love you always I think ...
- Autobiographia Literaria When I was a child I played by ...
- Music If I rest for a moment near The Equestrian pausing for...
- For Grace, After A Party You do not always know what I am ...
- A True Account Of Talking To T...
- Homosexuality So we are taking off our masks, are we, and ...
Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara was an American writer, poet and art critic. He was a member of the New York School of poetry.
Life
Frank O'Hara, the son of Russell Joseph O'Hara and Katherine (née Broderick) was born on March 27, 1926, at Maryland General Hospital, Baltimore and grew up in Grafton, Massachusetts. He attended St. John's High School in Worcester. He grew up believing he had been born in June, but in fact had been born in March, his parents having disguised his true date of birth because he was conceived out of wedlock. He studied piano at the New England Conservatory in Boston from 1941 to 1944 and served in the South Pacific and Japan as a ... more »
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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 ...
Is there a poem called Blocks: by O'Hara. If there is I can't find it.
No, he is not alive. He died at forty, but he is awake, in his poetry. He cannot write you your poems, his body is sleeping, yet not, in his poetry. There he is dancing. That is all.
Dear Frank O'Hara,
Are you alive?
I've read your poems and know that you are.
But are you available in person?
I'd like to ask for more poems..
that's all.