Free Downloads Lunch Poems (City Lights Pocket Poets Series)
Important poems by the late New York poet published in The New American Poetry, Evergreen Review, Floating Bear and stranger places.Often this poet, strolling through the noisy splintered glare of a Manhattan noon, has paused at a sample Olivetti to type up thirty or forty lines of ruminations, or pondering more deeply has withdrawn to a darkened ware- or firehouse to limn his computed misunderstandings of the eternal questions of life, coexistence, and depth, while never forgetting to eat lunch, his favorite meal.
Series: City Lights Pocket Poets Series
Paperback: 76 pages
Publisher: City Lights Publishers; 1st edition (January 1, 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0872860353
ISBN-13: 978-0872860353
Product Dimensions: 4.9 x 0.2 x 6.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #32,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #6 in Books > Gay & Lesbian > Literature & Fiction > Poetry #117 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Regional & Cultural > United States #135 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Themes & Styles
Frank O'Hara's reputation seems caught in a holding period, an awkward stage preliminary to his work becoming universal and timeless.Consider, for example, the final scene in the opening episode of the second season of "Mad Men," the cable TV series set in the world of advertising as practiced in New York in the early 1960s. We see the show's protagonist, Don Draper, picking up a slim volume of O'Hara's poems ("Meditations in an Emergency," 1957). He recites the final lines from "Mayakovsky." There is an ambivalence to the scene. Was the O'Hara poem chosen for its intrinsic merit, or was the O'Hara name used as an easy marker for the zeitgeist (the same way the show's producers highlight the period-specific cut of Draper's suit and hair and attitudes)? With friends like these, when will O'Hara escape his confinement to the mannerist ghetto of the "New York School"?And so some readers may pick up "Lunch Poems" (first published in 1964) after seeing it praised as an emblematic cultural document of mid-twentieth century America. Yet even if the time-bound aura of O'Hara is the come-on, what makes you stay enthralled is his voice -- a "thinking" voice as vitally American as Whitman or Frost.There are 37 poems in "Lunch Poems" and their quality as well as their accessibility varies. The poems span a period from 1953 to 1964. This book is not a "best of" O'Hara collection, yet it does contain what may be his most durable poem.A few of these short pieces are so recondite that they lose me. In a few others O'Hara raises an opaque scrim to suggest beauty beckoning from the other side, and these poems begin to "click" only after multiple readings. But the majority of the poems are freshly-minted coins granting immediate access to a lively, urbane worldview.
Leonard Lopate, a regular on the public radio station WNYC, was inspired by the BBC series and associated book A History of the World in 100 Objects. He asked listenders to vote for the 10 objects that best tell New York's story --- from its first days to 2012.Item number 6, just behind the 18th century ship excavated from the WTC site in 2010 and just ahead of the Brooklyn Bridge, was Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara. I was very surprised, frankly; I had heard and actually seen all of the other items on the list, but this small collection was totally new to me.The Associate Producer of the show, Steven Valentino, was also surprised. "It was slightly surprising that Frank O'Hara's 1964 collection Lunch Poems came in at number six on our list, but it turns out to be a very good way of looking at New York City. As NYU professor Lytle Shaw, author of the book Frank O'Hara: The Poetics of Coterie explains: 'Lunch Poems is a condensed and highly accessible book that is smaller than a subway map.' That feature makes it easy to take the book anywhere. Shaw described it as having the potential to 'acclimatize you to the things New York has to offer.
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