This collection is a reissue of a volume first published by Grove Press in 1957, and it demonstrates beautifully the flawless rhythm underlying O'H...
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Feb 12, 2011
Natalie
rated it: 
I don't read poetry too terribly often, and the primary reason I even KNEW of this particular book was from the show Mad Men. So sue me. I'd bet most people who've recently read it have the same exact reason.
Anyway
Each poem has a particular flare of pure 1960's energy. Having studied that era in relative detail, I still can't quite put my finger on what exactly tickles my fancy about it... There's a definite sense of ambivalence that occasionally lingers on the precipice More...
Anyway
Each poem has a particular flare of pure 1960's energy. Having studied that era in relative detail, I still can't quite put my finger on what exactly tickles my fancy about it... There's a definite sense of ambivalence that occasionally lingers on the precipice More...
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Oct 19, 2011
Jonathan
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Read this on my friend Don's recommendation. Can't claim to understand what the fuck's going on at certain points, but many stanzas are washes of such serene beauty -- e.g.:
Perhaps it is to avoid some great sadness,
as in a Restoration tragedy the hero cries "Sleep!"
O for a long sound sleep and so forget it!"
that one flies, soaring above the shoreless city,
veering upward from the pavement as a pigeon
does when a car honks or a door slams, the door
More...
Perhaps it is to avoid some great sadness,
as in a Restoration tragedy the hero cries "Sleep!"
O for a long sound sleep and so forget it!"
that one flies, soaring above the shoreless city,
veering upward from the pavement as a pigeon
does when a car honks or a door slams, the door
More...
Sep 12, 2011
Shana
rated it:
I am one of the many people who picked up this collection of poetry because Don Draper was reading it at a bar in Mad Men, in an episode named after it. I have read through it a few times now and find myself drawn to certain passages and bored/untouched by others. O'Hara worked as a critic and a curator at MOMA during the height of the abstract-expressionist period, and there seems to be a bit of that way of thinking in his poetry: emotional, idiosyncratic, and littered with unanswered questions
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Apr 25, 2010
Christian
rated it: 
Modern poetry is for advanced people. If you're not advanced, put this slim volume of "fractured", "delicate", "touched" poems down. These are not for you. You best stick with your "prose."
Try this as a test: "That's funny! there's blood on my chest/oh yes, I've been carrying bricks/what a funny place to rupture!/and now it is raining on the ailanthus/as I step out onto the window ledge/the tracks are smoky and/glistening with a passion f More...
Try this as a test: "That's funny! there's blood on my chest/oh yes, I've been carrying bricks/what a funny place to rupture!/and now it is raining on the ailanthus/as I step out onto the window ledge/the tracks are smoky and/glistening with a passion f More...
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Sep 14, 2011
Joseph
rated it: 
Count me in amongst the many who picked this book up after it was featured in the second season of Mad Men. I read it, but I didn't really feel like I'd read it, so I left it sitting in my "currently reading" list. For three years.
To be honest, I like a little more structure in my poetry, but O'Hara's messiness is certainly appropriate. These are poems of striving, of moving forward, and for that, there's no time for stopping to adjust meter and rhyme scheme.
He' More...
To be honest, I like a little more structure in my poetry, but O'Hara's messiness is certainly appropriate. These are poems of striving, of moving forward, and for that, there's no time for stopping to adjust meter and rhyme scheme.
He' More...
Oct 20, 2008
Kelly
rated it:
"To the Harbormaster, my ship was on the way, it got caught up in some moorings...'Call me, call when you get in!'...at best an over-solemn introduction to cosmic entertainment...long may you illumine space with your marvellous appearances, delays...
We, in secret play
affectionate games and bruise
our knees like China's shoes
And thus they grew like giggling fir trees...Haven't you ever fallen down at Christmas?...placing my fingers tenderly upon your cold, More...
We, in secret play
affectionate games and bruise
our knees like China's shoes
And thus they grew like giggling fir trees...Haven't you ever fallen down at Christmas?...placing my fingers tenderly upon your cold, More...
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Jan 12, 2011
Andrew
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Don Draper picked this for our bookclub. I liked it. Resisting mightily the desire for an exclamation point. How about these holiday lines: "Haven't you ever fallen down at Christmas / and didn't it move everyone who saw you? / isn't that what the tree means? the pure simple pleasure / of making weep those whom you cannot move by your flights"
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Mar 21, 2009
Kevin
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With the completion of Meditations in an Emergency, I have read both collections of poetry that Frank O'Hara had published during his lifetime. Compared to Lunch Poems, Meditations in an Emergency reflects in some ways a more formal style.
My favorite poems in the collection were "To the Harbormaster", "Poem (The eager note on my door...)", "Meditations in an Emergency", and "Mayakovsky".
His work is alternately funny and sad. Some po More...
My favorite poems in the collection were "To the Harbormaster", "Poem (The eager note on my door...)", "Meditations in an Emergency", and "Mayakovsky".
His work is alternately funny and sad. Some po More...
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Jul 08, 2008
Alex
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Sep 24, 2010
Beth
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"Why should I share you? Why don't you get rid of someone else for a change?
"I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love."
How can you not, at the very least, give an extra moment's pause to enjoy the beauty and raw emotion of those lines?
"I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love."
How can you not, at the very least, give an extra moment's pause to enjoy the beauty and raw emotion of those lines?
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Jan 08, 2010
Steven
rated it:
A pleasant collection from American New York poet Frank O'Hara. I found this book to be very unique personal observational poems about his everyday life (including his job as a museum curator)- the language was a bit too ambiguous at times for me but overall I believe there's a lack of pretentiousness here that's typical of modern poetry.
Oct 20, 2010
Everett
rated it:
Sometimes I am right there with O´hara, like some inside joke or secret between friends, othertimes and frequently I feel like he is trying to relay the fragments of dreams he had while in troubled sleep at an opera on a star.
Mar 02, 2011
Kosh
rated it:
an enjoyable book of poetry, the reason for only three stars has more to do with my deficiency in reading poetry and being able to get the most out of the book, than with the actual content itself.
May 06, 2011
Jake
rated it:
I think I only understood 50% of O'Hara's "Lunch Poems," and I managed to understand waaaay less in this collection. But I...can't...quite...stop reading Frank O'Hara. I'll smile at the end of one of his poems, and if somebody asked me what it was about, I'd probably just keep grinning stupidly and tell them, "I don't know."
Maybe it's because O'Hara really does write poems with an upbeat rhythm. He has tremendously good lines here and there, but a lot of it is eit More...
Maybe it's because O'Hara really does write poems with an upbeat rhythm. He has tremendously good lines here and there, but a lot of it is eit More...
Aug 11, 2010
Sam
rated it:
Somehow this still seems fresh. Glad I went out of my way to do an ILL to get a copy of it. I don't read a lot of poetry but I thoroughly enjoyed this. Thanks Mad Men!
Sep 15, 2009
Jennie
rated it:
yeah...another "oooh, saw it on Mad Men."
However...the part read made it too good to pass up...
Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.
However...the part read made it too good to pass up...
Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.
Mar 03, 2011
Chad
rated it:
Mad Men season 2 introduced me to Frank O'Hara, and I was very happy to read through the mind of someone in the 1960s. To the Harbormaster is my favorite.
Aug 31, 2009
Lisbeth
rated it:
As seen on Mad Men! Some of these are wonderful, others may be wonderful, but for me, are too oblique or require grad-school explication.
Here's a line that speaks for itself: "I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love." That, by the way, is from the title poem.
Here's a line that speaks for itself: "I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love." That, by the way, is from the title poem.
Mar 19, 2009
Dennis
rated it: 
I picked up this collection of poems after it was featured in an episode of the TV show Mad Men. I was hoping that it would capture the time (late 50's/ early 60's) in a similar fashion.
Unfortunatly, I found this collection to be far too inaccessable and cryptic.
There are powerful moments, particularly the title poem, but they are few and far between.
I think the poetry of this era is very powerful, but I much prefer the work of Bukowski.
Unfortunatly, I found this collection to be far too inaccessable and cryptic.
There are powerful moments, particularly the title poem, but they are few and far between.
I think the poetry of this era is very powerful, but I much prefer the work of Bukowski.
Jun 03, 2009
There are exactly 115 exclamation points in this collection (114 if you don't count an epigraph). Here are all of them:
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May 15, 2011
Sarah
rated it:
I've been meaning to read this, and there is always anxiety about books with recommendations, but I was not disappointed.
Feb 03, 2011
<------------------------This book------------------------->
<-------------------------My head-------------------------->
<-------------------------My head-------------------------->
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Jul 19, 2009
Joe
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Read the title poem and you will be hooked. It's not just a plot point in Mad Men, it's also a masterpiece.
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Jan 08, 2012
Sebastion
rated it:
A decent read at Barnes and Noble on a Sunday. I like his abstracted expressionism.
Dec 05, 2008
britany
rated it:
mayakovsky is the one thing that keeps me from loathing/abhorring poetry in general.
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Feb 13, 2010
I know and love, "To the Harbormaster" and I have read "Meditations in an Emergency"( the Poem)but not a collection of O'Hara's; I have been looking for a copy for a while . . .
