epicpinkfluffyunicorn's review against another edition
emotional
funny
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.0
like some poems were bad and i skipped quite a bit but o’hara can really floor me with a shorter piece or a single line. also the essays were kinda interesting
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
3.0
Frank O'Hara really was the master of polyptoton, ploce, antanaclasis, and paronomasia. This particular poem, "Why I Am Not a Painter," one of my favourites, is antithetical to the surface-level poetry that's so widely plagued the internet: every line has another layer underneath. "I am a poet," O'Hara states, in the first line. He's a poet: there's nothing he can do about it. Near the end of the poem, he repeats himself, emphatic: "I am a real poet." The deceptively colloquial tone belies the nuances of identity (poet, painter) and the associated actions (writing poetry, painting pictures). Why is O'Hara a poet? Because he writes poetry. Because he's not a painter. This is the poem:
Simplicity is not inherently profundity, but O'Hara masters both.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 of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.
volcanoes's review against another edition
i swear i will never get through this book.
bittercactus's review against another edition
4.0
There is something about Frank O'Hara. Even when I have no idea what he is talking about, he strikes an emotional chord. Personal favorite: "Thinking of James Dean."
niamhelizabethfennell's review against another edition
5.0
I’ve been reading his poems while I’ve been going through a period of mixed emotions. His words really do resonant with me and have inspired me during my own Creative process. “Having a coke with you” echoed my current feelings of pain and love, while “Why I am not a painter” reminded me, that to write authentically cannot be forced. So even if you set out to write about oranges, along the way you might find you’ve not even mentioned an orange (the fruit nor the colour) and O’Hara has taught me that this is just fine.