Review of The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara

The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara provides a strikingly deep look at Frank O’Hara’s work and his life. Most of the poems provide an almost diary-like feel to them which creates an intimate view of O’Hara’s thoughts. It seems he was consciously trying to push back on the conventional idea of what poetry was at the time, as can be seen through the continual iteration of titling many of his poems ‘Poem’. There is a wide breadth of poems that I enjoyed, though found ‘Poem [Let’s take a walk, you]’, ‘1951’, ‘Steven’, ‘Lebanon’, ‘Poem [Pawing the mound with his hairy legs]’, ‘Two Dreams of Waking’, ‘The Anthology of Lonely Days’, ‘Three Poems’, and ‘Rogers in Italy’ all to be particularly interesting. And I really enjoyed the lines in ‘Rogers in Italy’ that goes, “And now at last I am/alone again and night, at last, has come.” Throughout the poems, there are thoughts about paintings, other poets, his mood, and his sexual encounters both with men and women. Also, the essay, ‘Personism: A Manifesto’ was interesting.
 
Final Rating: 3.5/5