Frank O'Hara (1926 - 1966)


A selective bibliography of open access articles on Frank O'Hara, favoring signed articles by recognized scholars, articles published in reviewed sources, and web sites that adhere to the MLA Guidelines for Authors of Web Sites


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Literary Criticism

Ashbery, John. In a tribute to Frank O'Hara John Ashbery writes on O'Hara's "Memorial Day 1950." Also short articles from poets Elaine Equi on "The Dirty Poems of Frank O'Hara," Thom Gunn on "The Sanity of Frank O'Hara." From the Poetry Society of America

Brossard, Olivier. On the very funny 1964 movie "The Last Clean Shirt" by Alfred Leslie and Frank O'Hara, in Jacket Magazine 24 (Aug. 2003)

Cappucci, Paul R. "'And Everyone and I Stopped Breathing': William Carlos Williams, Frank O'Hara, and the News of the Day." On "The Day Lady Died," from Lunch Poems. Papers on Language and Literature, 10/1/03

Diggory, Terence. "Questions of identity in 'Oranges' by Frank O'Hara and Grace Hartigan" in Art Journal, Winter, 1993

Equi, Elaine. "Frank O'Hara: Nothing Personal." Poet Elaine Equi writes of her liking for O'Hara's poetry, wonders why he has not been more influential. In Conjunctions 29 (fall 1997)

Ferguson, Russell. An excerpt from the catalog for the exhibition "In Memory of My Feelings: Frank O'Hara and American Art," organized by Russell Ferguson and presented at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1999. Jacket Magazine 10 (1999)

Ferguson, Russell. A review of Ferguson's In Memory of My Feelings: Frank O'Hara and American Art. Reviewed by Chris Fischbach in Rain Taxi, Winter 1999/2000

Kane, Daniel. An introduction to Frank O'Hara from the Literary Encyclopedia, 17 September 2004

Kimmelman, Burt. "From Black Mountain College to St. Mark's Church: The Cityscape Poetics of Blackburn, di Prima, and Oppenheimer." Kimmelman contends that other poetries, in addition to the New York School, should be discussed in connection with the history of the St. Mark's Poetry Project. In Rain Taxi, spring 2002

Lehman, David. The introduction to Lehman's The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets, (1998) Jacket Magazine 5 (Oct. 1998)

Lehman, David. A review of Lehman's The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets, in Salon.com. Another review, by Paul Hoover, from Jacket Magazine 6

Lehman, David. "O'Hara's Artful Life," an overview of Frank O'Hara's life and work in New York City, in Art in America, Feb, 2000

LeSueur, Joe. A review of LeSueur's Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O’Hara (Farrar Straus Giroux). Says reviewer William Corbett, "all who care for O’Hara’s poetry and/or for what the composer Morton Feldman called O’Hara’s 'all-pervasive presence that seems to grow larger and larger as he moves away in time' will be delighted and instructed by this book." In the Boston Phoenix, 7/11/03

Moramarco, Fred. A lengthy essay from Moramarco's Containing Multitudes discusses poets including Frank O'Hara, who "would move beyond the impersonal, objectivist confines of modernism and toward a poetry centered in the physical self of the poet who produced it. They participated collectively in the mid-century poetic climate that revolutionized poetry and greatly broadened its possibilities."

Perloff, Marjorie. New introductory chapter from Frank O'Hara: Painter Among Poets, 1997, a re-issue of Perloff's groundbreaking 1977 assessment of O'Hara

Perloff, Marjorie. "In Memoriam: Donald Allen (1912–2004)" Critic Marjorie Perloff writes about several meetings with O'Hara's editor, Donald Allen, in Jacket Magazine 25, Feb. 2004

Phillips, Rodney On the New York School poets from the Literary Encyclopedia, 20 December 2004

Rexroth, Kenneth. "The Cubist Poetry of Pierre Reverdy" from Introduction to Rexroth’s translation of Pierre Reverdy’s Selected Poems (New Directions, 1969)

Rubinstein, Raphael. "Poetry Plastique." On collaborations between poets and painters since the 1950s. In Art in America, Feb, 2002

Shaw, Lytle. "On Coterie: Frank O'Hara." "O'Hara's engagement with coterie generally and names specifically can be understood less as an affirmation of identity than as a meta-communal concern." Jacket Magazine 10 (Oct. 1999)

Smith, Dale. On a collaborative work between Bill Berkson and Frank O'Hara, "Hymns of St. Bridget." In Jacket Magazine 16 (2002)

Smith, Hazel. A review of Hyperscapes in the Poetry of Frank O'Hara. Reviewed by Terence Diggory, who notes "Smith admires the performance that creates [O'Hara's] voice but she refuses to identify the performer with O’Hara. Rather, a 'splintered subjectivity' speaks in the poems (144), an array of 'different types of recontextualised talk' that compose a 'talkscape' (143). As 'talkscape' intertwines with 'textscape,' recontextualised literary language and patterning, the result is the complex weave that Smith calls the 'hyperscape' (151)." In Jacket Magazine 22 (May 2003)

Yau, John. "At the Movies with Weldon Kees and Frank O'Hara." On similarities and differences between Frank O'Hara and poet Weldon Kees. American Poetry Review, 9/1/05

Yau, John. "The Poet as Art Critic," on John Ashbery and Frank O'Hara as poets and art critics, in American Poetry Review, May/Jun 2005


Overview, unsigned material, bibliography

An introduction to Frank O'Hara and his poetry, includes excerpts of important critical commentaries on "A Step Away from Them," "The Day Lady Died," Why I Am Not a Painter," "A True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire Island," "On Seeing Larry Rivers' Washington Crosses the Delaware" and other poems. From the Modern American Poetry Site (Univ. of Illinois)

An introduction to Frank O'Hara from the Academy of American Poets, and links to other brief essays at poets.org on O'Hara and the New York School of poets

A very short introduction to Frank O'Hara from the Heath Anthology of American Literature

Publication information about early, limited edition books by New York School poets and painters that were published by the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, from the gallery

Web page on Frank O'Hara by Dr. Raphael Schulte contains useful visuals of some of the relevant art

Brief entry in Harvard Magazine about Edward Gorey, Harvard graduate and roommate of Frank O'Hara

On collecting books by the New York School of poets from AB Bookman's Weekly, Jan. 25, 1999 (removed)


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