Frank O'Hara
Frank O'Hara
Francis Russell "Frank" O'Harawas an American writer, poet and art critic. Because of his employment as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure in the New York School—an informal group of artists, writers and musicians who drew inspiration from jazz, surrealism, abstract expressionism, action painting and contemporary avant-garde art movements...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth27 March 1926
CountryUnited States of America
My Heart I'm not going to cry all the time nor shall I laugh all the time, I don't prefer one "strain" to another. I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie, not just a sleeper, but also the big, overproduced first-run kind. I want to be at least as alive as the vulgar. And if some aficionado of my mess says "That's not like Frank!," all to the good! I don't wear brown and grey suits all the time, do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera, often. I want my feet to be bare, I want my face to be shaven, and my heart--you can't plan on the heart, but the better part of it, my poetry, is open.
That's not a run in your stocking, it's a hand on your leg.
I don't ... like rhythm, assonance, all that stuff. You just go on your nerve. If someone's chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don't turn around and shout, 'Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep.'
Leaf! you are so big! How can you change your color, then just fall! As if there were no such thing as integrity!
...but it is good to be several floors up in the dead of night wondering whether you are any good or not and the only decision you can make is that you did it...
Kerouac: You're ruining American poetry, O'Hara. O'Hara: That's more than you ever did for it, Kerouac
I don't think I want to win anything I think I want to die unadorned.
The artificial is always innocent.
Pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you.
See how free we are! as a nation of persons.
The poem is at last between two persons instead of two pages. In all modesty, I confess that it may be the death of literature as we know it.
My heart is in my/ pocket. It is poems by Pierre Reverdy.
Mothers of America / let your kids go to the movies!
I wish I weren’t reeling at all.