Frank O'Hara and the Poetics of Saying "I"

FRANK O'HARA AND THE POETICS OF SAYING 'I' examines the poetics of the American poet Frank O'Hara in the context of both European and American expressionism. Placing O'Hara in relation to poets such as Rilke, Williams, and Pasternak, as well as painters such as Pollock and Motherwell, the book argues that while O'Hara understands poetic form to be the result of the poet's exploration of his experience, the purpose of the resultant artefact is not to enumerate the alphabet of the mind but to reinvigorate language through which experience of the material world is, in part, mediated. It is this somewhat less ambitious, more pragmatic view of the end of art that guides O'Hara in his stylistic innovations in poems such as Second Avenue and his 'I do this I do that' poems. The book also examines O'Hara's love poems and discusses his influence on later poets.