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Frank O'Hara: Poems from the Tibor De Nagy Editions, 1952-1956
Poetry. FRANK O'HARA: POEMS FROM THE TIBOR DE NAGY EDITIONS 1952-1966 brings together three volumes of poems that Tibor de Nagy Editions published by the poet, who was a leading light of the New York School of Poets, including his first publication A City Winter and Other Poems (1952), along with later publications Oranges (1953), and Love Poems (Tentative Title) from 1965. Also included is O'Hara's last poem, "Little Elegy for Antonio Machado," from 1966, for a brochure accompanying a benefit show for Spanish Refugee Aid. Reproduced in the book are three ink drawings by Larry Rivers that were included in the original A City Winter and the cover for Oranges by Grace Hartigan. This new publication is the first time these three early volumes are gathered together in one book. It celebrates the accomplishments of one of the most significant poetic voices of the post war 20th Century, as well as his ongoing relationship with Tibor de Nagy Editions, which was started by Tibor de Nagy Gallery's John Bernard Myers in 1951. Tibor de Nagy Editions, along with O'Hara's, published first collections of poems by John Ashbery, Barbara, Guest, Kenneth Koch, and Bill Berkson, among others.
- GenresPoetry
72 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2006
About the author
Frank O'Hara
125 books715 followersCollections of American poet Francis Russell O'Hara include
Meditations in an Emergency
(1957) and
Lunch Poems
(1964); playfulness, irony, sophistication, and a shared interest in the visual arts mark works of the New York School, an active group that included O'Hara during the 1950s and 1960s.
Parents reared O'Hara in Grafton, Massachusetts. O'Hara served in the south Pacific and Japan as a sonar man on the destroyer United States Ship Nicholas during World War II.
With the funding, made available to veterans, he attended Harvard University and roomed with artist-writer Edward Gorey. He majored in music and composed some works despite his irregular attendance was and his disparate interests. Visual art and contemporary music, his first love, heavily influenced O'Hara, a fine piano player all his life; he suddenly played swathes of Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff when visiting new partners, often to their shock.
At Harvard, O'Hara met John Ashbery and began publishing poems in the Harvard Advocate. Despite his love for music, O'Hara changed his major and graduated from Harvard in 1950 with a degree in English.
He then attended graduate school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. At Michigan, he won a Hopwood award and received his Master of Arts in English literature 1951. In that autumn, O'Hara moved into an apartment in city of New York with Joe LeSueur, his roommate and sometimes his lover for the next 11 years. Known throughout his life for his extreme sociability, passion, and warmth, O'Hara had hundreds of friends and lovers throughout his life, many from the New York art and poetry worlds. Soon after he arrived in New York, the Museum of Modern Art employed him at the front desk, and he began to write seriously.
O'Hara, active in the art world, working as a reviewer for Art News, and in 1960 was made Assistant Curator of Painting and Sculpture Exhibitions for the Museum of Modern Art. He was also friends with artists like Willem de Kooning, Norman Bluhm, Larry Rivers, and Joan Mitchell. O'Hara died in an accident on Fire Island in which he was struck and seriously injured by a man speeding in a beach vehicle during the early morning hours of July 24, 1966. He died the next day of a ruptured liver at the age of 40 and was buried in the Green River Cemetery on Long Island.
Parents reared O'Hara in Grafton, Massachusetts. O'Hara served in the south Pacific and Japan as a sonar man on the destroyer United States Ship Nicholas during World War II.
With the funding, made available to veterans, he attended Harvard University and roomed with artist-writer Edward Gorey. He majored in music and composed some works despite his irregular attendance was and his disparate interests. Visual art and contemporary music, his first love, heavily influenced O'Hara, a fine piano player all his life; he suddenly played swathes of Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff when visiting new partners, often to their shock.
At Harvard, O'Hara met John Ashbery and began publishing poems in the Harvard Advocate. Despite his love for music, O'Hara changed his major and graduated from Harvard in 1950 with a degree in English.
He then attended graduate school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. At Michigan, he won a Hopwood award and received his Master of Arts in English literature 1951. In that autumn, O'Hara moved into an apartment in city of New York with Joe LeSueur, his roommate and sometimes his lover for the next 11 years. Known throughout his life for his extreme sociability, passion, and warmth, O'Hara had hundreds of friends and lovers throughout his life, many from the New York art and poetry worlds. Soon after he arrived in New York, the Museum of Modern Art employed him at the front desk, and he began to write seriously.
O'Hara, active in the art world, working as a reviewer for Art News, and in 1960 was made Assistant Curator of Painting and Sculpture Exhibitions for the Museum of Modern Art. He was also friends with artists like Willem de Kooning, Norman Bluhm, Larry Rivers, and Joan Mitchell. O'Hara died in an accident on Fire Island in which he was struck and seriously injured by a man speeding in a beach vehicle during the early morning hours of July 24, 1966. He died the next day of a ruptured liver at the age of 40 and was buried in the Green River Cemetery on Long Island.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 26, 2022
Every few months I have to read this collection to regain my romantic strength
April 26, 2011
It's fascinating to see these poems in its original edition and placement. A bing-bongo for the buck is always the Selected or Collected poems - but I enjoy reading this and seeing it how O'Hara saw it in the years 1952-1966. This slim volume is a perfect read on an one-way trip from Silverlake to West Hollywood. Also the flavor of NYC Manhattan is so strong with just a few lines conveying an entire world that is NYC. Well, O'Hara's NYC.
Very elegant and beautifully designed book. Even if you have the poems in different editions, this is a must. It is sort of like choosing a greatest hits package or the original album and how that song was placed on that album.
Very elegant and beautifully designed book. Even if you have the poems in different editions, this is a must. It is sort of like choosing a greatest hits package or the original album and how that song was placed on that album.
October 4, 2007
This is a great collection, allowing the reader to follow O'Hara from his early formalism to his last collection, Love Poems. Beauty, intentionally or not, surfaces everywhere.
October 2, 2007
such a range of work in a slim, handsome book. A very nice introduction to his work.
September 8, 2020
A few terrific poems and a number of mediocre ones.
March 12, 2022
I really enjoyed the poems in the book. O’Hara brought different scenes to life and I really liked the imagery he used in each of his poems.
May 26, 2008
Frank O'Hara: Poems from the Tabor De Nagy Editions is a collection of poems from the Tabor De Nagy series. Never mind that there's no cover image, (it has a beautiful photo of O'Hara's face), the selections are uneven. Some poems are mediocre, but his poem, "A City Winter" written in a series of sonnets is absolutely stunning; it is his most virutoso and best. There are other poems that are excellent and I think I'm being unfair not citing those, but one poem is all one needs to find any excuse to buy a book. This book is worth it to read the range of voice that O'Hara had, and what a range he had! If you're just too broke to buy the book, then I'll provide a link where you can read more of his work, but I encourage you to pick up the book for the sake of permanence and prosperity if you're part of the literati.
Frank O'Hara's Poems
Here is a sample poem from A City Winter:
1
I understand the boredom of the clerks
fatigue shifting like dunes within their eyes
a frightful nausea gumming up the works
that once was thought aggression in disguise.
Do you remember? then how lightly dead
seemed the moon when over factories
it languid slid like a barrage of lead
above the heart, the fierce inventories
of desire. Now women wander our dreams
carrying money and to our sleep's shame
our hands twitch not for swift blood-sunk triremes
nor languorous white horses nor ill fame,
but clutch the groin that clouds a pallid sky
where tow'rs are sinking in their common eye.
Frank O'Hara's Poems
Here is a sample poem from A City Winter:
1
I understand the boredom of the clerks
fatigue shifting like dunes within their eyes
a frightful nausea gumming up the works
that once was thought aggression in disguise.
Do you remember? then how lightly dead
seemed the moon when over factories
it languid slid like a barrage of lead
above the heart, the fierce inventories
of desire. Now women wander our dreams
carrying money and to our sleep's shame
our hands twitch not for swift blood-sunk triremes
nor languorous white horses nor ill fame,
but clutch the groin that clouds a pallid sky
where tow'rs are sinking in their common eye.
September 17, 2013
Frank O'Hara's books are sort of like Smiths records in that individual poems might appear in more than one book and the books shouldn't be seen as representing specific time periods. Unlike Smiths records, O'Hara's books, in my experience, are frustratingly inconsistent and lack the coherence I associate with short poetry volumes at their best. His Collected Poems is probably overkill, and it doesn't even include all of his poems.
But much like I need to own all of the Smiths' records, I feel the need to read all of O'Hara's books, even a hodgepodge like this one, which gathers together three chapbooks. Only Love Poems (Tentative Title) is really to my liking, and I probably should've realized that going in, but I didn't, and who really cares? I mean, this took like an hour to read. Maybe a little longer since I savored some of the later poems.
But much like I need to own all of the Smiths' records, I feel the need to read all of O'Hara's books, even a hodgepodge like this one, which gathers together three chapbooks. Only Love Poems (Tentative Title) is really to my liking, and I probably should've realized that going in, but I didn't, and who really cares? I mean, this took like an hour to read. Maybe a little longer since I savored some of the later poems.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews