Poems

Frank O'Hara (1926-66) was born in Baltimore, Maryland, but it is New York with which he is most intimately associated. From the early 1950s he was involved with the city's abstract expressionist scene of painters, as well as the New York School of Poets that included John Ashbery. He worked for many years at the Museum of Modern Art, and died in 1966 following a bizarre beach-buggy accident on Fire Island. His poems are a cacophony of surrealism and city living, frivolity and a serious affection for life. Lunch Poems appeared in 1964 and his Collected Poems in 1971. the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement and the New Republic. Soft Sift was published in 2001. past or present whom they have particularly admired. By their selection of verses and their critical reactions, the selectors offer intriguing insights into their own work. Here, Mark Ford selects Frank O'Hara.