Frank O'Hara: Poet Among Painters

About this book

Drawing extensively upon the poets unpublished manuscriptspoems journals essays and lettersas well as all his published works Marjorie Perloff presents Frank OHara as one of the central poets of the postwar period and an important critic of the visual arts. Perloff traces the poets development through his early years at Harvard and his interest in French Dadaism and Surrealism to his later poems that fuse literary influence with elements from Abstract Expressionist painting atonal music and contemporary film. This edition contains a new Introduction addressing OHaras homosexuality his attitudes toward racism and changes in poetic climate cover the past few decades. "A groundbreaking study. This book is a genuine work of criticism. . . . Through Marjorie Perloffs book we see an OHara perhaps only his closer associates saw before: a poet fully aware of the traditions and techniques of his craft who in a life tragically foreshortened produced an adventurous if somewhat erratic body of American verse."David Lenson Chronicle of Higher Education "Perloff is a reliable well-informed discreet sensitive . . . guide. . . . She is impressive in the way she deals with OHaras relationship to painters and paintings and she does give first-rate readings of four major poems."Jonathan Cott New York Times Book Review