Frank O’Hara reads selected poems

0:00 Introduction
0:16 Poem
00:49 Poem
01:48 Adieu Norman, Bonjour to Joan and Jean Paul
04:54 Having a Coke with You
07:00 Ode to Joy, To Hell With It
11:44 To the Film Industry in Crisis
“Poem / Poem” recorded by Eugene Brooks + Jerry Newman, NYC, Sept. 1963
from Big Ego (Giorno Poetry Systems)
“Adieu Norman, Bonjour to Joan and Jean Paul” recorded SUNY Buffalo, NY, Sept. 1964
from Dial-A-Poem Poets Disconnected (Giorno Poetry Systems, 1972)
“Having a Coke with You” recorded WNET-TV, Poetry: U.S.A., 1966
from Biting off the Tongue of a Corpse (Giorno Poetry Systems, 1975)
“Ode to Joy, To Hell With It” from Dial-A-Poem Poets (Giorno Poetry Systems)
“To the Film Industry in Crisis” with Jane Freilicher and John Gruen on piano. Recorded by The Evergreen Review, NY, May 11, 1959 from Totally Corrupt (Giorno Poetry Systems)

[@46metube]

O’Hara is so modern, he still is.

[@standauphin1592]

I don’t know much about poetry, but I enjoy this

[@redmondkerr7551]

Well said Stan!

[@midshipman8654]

Thank you Guenonposter, I appreciate it.

[@pradeeppandey7228]

🙏

[@clrajoy]

Incredible

[@robmccabe27]

I just published my second poetry collection, "A Letter to Frank & Othee Poems," dedicated to Frank O'Hara. Thank you, Frank for your inspirational spirit. And thank you for posting this recording. Where did you find these recordings?

[@manseed8875]

Is ur book avail online?

[@AliceYobby]

Thank you

[@Caligari...]

Let us have madness openly ...

[@mantraboutique1443]

If you like O' Hara, you might like this:
th-cam.com/video/A1bleMz8aLo/w-d-xo.html

[@user-ki9lx9yn6j]

To Hell With It
“Hungry winter, this winter”
meaningful hints at dismay
to be touched, to see labeled as such
perspicacious Colette and Vladimirovitch meet with sickness and distress,
it is because of sunspots on the sun.
I clean it off with an old sock
and go on:
And blonde Gregory dead in Fall Out on a Highway with his Broadway wife,
the last of the Lafayettes,
(How I hate subject matter! melancholy,
intruding on the vigorous heart,
the soul telling itself
you haven’t suffered enough ((Hyalomiel))
and all things that don’t change,
photographs,
monuments,
memories of Bunny and Gregory and me in costume
bowing to each other and the audience, like jinxes)
nothing now can be changed, as if
last crying no tears will dry
and Bunny never change her writing of
the Bear, nor Gregory bear me
any gift further, beyond liking my poems
(no new poems for him.) and
a large red railroad handkerchief from the country
in his sportscar
so like another actor:
For sentiment is always intruding on form,
the immaculate disgust of the mind
beaten down by pain and the vileness of life’s flickering disapproval,
endless torment pretending to be the rose
of acknowledgement (courage)
and fruitless absolution (hence the word: “hip”)
to be cool,
decisive,
precise,
yes, while the barn door hits you in the face
each time you get up
because the wind, seeing you slim and gallant, rises
to embrace its darling poet. It thinks I’m mysterious.
All diseases are exchangeable.
Wind, you’ll have a terrible time
smothering my clarity, a void
behind my eyes,
into which existence
continues to stuff its wounded limbs
as I make room for them on one
after another filthy page of poetry.

[@dion1949]

I much prefer Ashbery's obscurity to O'Hara's directness.