- Frank O'Hara
imagesize = 106px
birthdate = birth date|1926|6|27|=mf=y
birthplace = Baltimore,Maryland
deathdate = death date and age|1966|7|25|1926|3|27|mf=y
deathdate =Fire Island, New York (Car Accident)
occupation =Poet ,Art Curator ,Art Critic ,Playwright
nationality = American
influences =Arthur Rimbaud ,Stephane Mallarmé ,Boris Pasternak ,John Ashbery ,Edward Field Francis Russell O'Hara (
June 27 ,1926 –July 25 ,1966 ) was an American poet who, along withJohn Ashbery ,James Schuyler ,Barbara Guest andKenneth Koch , was a key member of what was known as theNew York School of poetry.Life
Frank O'Hara, the son of Russell Joseph O'Hara and Katherine Broderick, was born at Maryland General Hospital,
Baltimore and grew up inGrafton, Massachusetts . He attendedSt. John's High School in Worcester. He studiedpiano at theNew England Conservatory inBoston from 1941 to 1944. O'Hara served in the South Pacific andJapan as asonar man on thedestroyer USS "Nicholas" duringWorld War II .With the funding made available to
veteran s he attendedHarvard University , where he roomed with artist/writerEdward Gorey . Although he majored in music and did some composing, his attendance was irregular and his interests disparate. He regularly attended classes inphilosophy andtheology , while writing impulsively in his spare time. O'Hara was heavily influenced byvisual art , and bycontemporary music , which was his first love (he remained a fine piano player all his life and would often shock new partners by suddenly playing swathes of Rachmaninoff when visiting them). He did have favorite poets:Arthur Rimbaud ,Stephane Mallarmé ,Boris Pasternak , andVladimir Mayakovsky . While at Harvard, O'Hara met John Ashbery and began publishing poems in the "Harvard Advocate ". Despite his love for music, O'Hara changed his major and graduated from Harvard in 1950 with a degree in English.He then attended graduate school at the
University of Michigan inAnn Arbor . While at Michigan, he won aHopwood Award and received his M.A. inEnglish literature 1951. That autumn O'Hara moved into anapartment inNew York City withJoe LeSueur , who would be his roommate and sometimes his lover for the next 11 years.citation |title=Joe: A Memoir of Joe Brainard |first=Ron |last=Padgett |publisher=Coffee House Press |year=2004 |isbn=1566891590 |chapter=Joe LeSueur & Frank O'Hara |page=64 ] 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 front desk of theMuseum of Modern Art and began to write seriously.O'Hara was active in the art world, working as a reviewer for "Art News," and in 1960 was made Assistant
Curator of Painting and Sculpture Exhibitions for the Museum of Modern Art. He was also friends withartist s likeWillem de Kooning ,Norman Bluhm ,Larry Rivers andJoan Mitchell . O'Hara died in anaccident onFire Island in which he was struck and seriously injured by a man speeding in a beach vehicle during the early morning hours ofJuly 24 , 1966. He died the next day of a rupturedliver at the age of 40 and was buried in theGreen River Cemetery onLong Island .Bibliography
Books in lifetime
* "A City Winter and Other Poems". Two Drawings by Larry Rivers. (New York: Tibor de Nagy Gallery Editions, 1951 [sic, i.e. 1952] )g
* "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)
* "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 Book People, 1975)
* "Early Writing". edited by Donald Allen (Bolinas, Calif: Grey Fox; Berkeley: distributed by Book People, 1977)
* "Poems Retrieved". edited by Donald Allen (Bolinas, Calif: Grey Fox Press; Berkeley, Calif: distributed by Book People, 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)Exhibitions
* Jackson Pollock. (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)References
External links
* [http://www.frankohara.org/ frankohara.org] (official home page)
* [http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/164 Academy of American Poets]
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7598269 Frank O'Hara's Photo & Gravesite]
* [http://www.kerouacalley.com/ohara.html Frank O'Hara @ Kerouac Alley]
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