The New York Poets: Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler : an Anthology, Volume 1

Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler

Carcanet, 2004 - Poetry - 214 pages

For the first time, The New York Poets gathers in a single volume the best work of four extraordinary poets: Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, and James Schuyler. By the early 1950s all four were settled in Manhattan, collaborating, competing and encouraging each other's radical experiments with language and form. Much of their work reflects their participation in the creative energies of the New York art scene, 'the floods of paint', to quote James Schuyler, 'in whose crashing surf we all scramble'. Believing that anything could be material for a poem, they transformed American poetry with their irreverent wit and daring.
Mark Ford's anthology is an essential introduction to four poets whose work has influenced poetry around the world. It includes detailed background information and a substantial bibliography.

Contents

• Ave Maria: 4
• Autobiographia Literaria 5 66780: 5
• Blocks: 11
• To the Harbormaster: 17
• In Memory of My Feelings: 23
• Am Not a Painter: 30
• To Gottfried Benn: 37
• You Are Gorgeous and Im Coming: 43
• Poem Lana Turner has collapsed: 49
• John Ashbery: 55
• A Last World: 63
• Soonest Mended: 73
• City Afternoon: 80
• Street Musicians: 94
• At North Farm: 102
• Kenneth Koch: 109
• You Were Wearing: 117
• The Simplicity of the Unknown Past: 125
• Days and Nights: 136
• One Train May Hide Another: 147
• James Schuyler: 159
• Empathy and New Year: 166
• Shimmer: 173
• June 30 1974: 185
• Dining Out With Doug and Frank: 192
• The Payne Whitney Poems: 199
• The Snowdrop: 205
• Index of Titles: 212
• The Invention of Poetry: 213

About the author

Frank O'Hara 1926-1966 Poet Frank O'Hara was born in Baltimore, MD and raised in Massachusetts. He served in the Navy and then studied at Harvard and the University of Michigan. From 1952 to 1966, O'Hara was on the staff at the Museum of Modern Art. He was a critic and a playwright and stayed active in the art scene. O'Hara published six books of poetry from 1952 until his death. Frank O'Hara died in 1966 when he was run down by a dune buggy on Fire Island. The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara edited by Donald Allen (Knopf, 1971), the first of several posthumous collections, shared the 1972 National Book Award for Poetry. John Ashbery was born on July 28, 1927 in Rochester, New York. He received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and a master's degree in English from Columbia University. After graduating, he wrote advertising copy for Oxford University Press and McGraw-Hill. In 1955, he won the Yale Younger Poets prize for his first collection, Some Trees. While on a Fulbright scholarship to Paris, he began writing art criticism and editing small journals. After about a decade in France, he returned to New York, where he became executive editor of ARTnews and continued to work as an arts journalist. After ARTnews was sold in 1972, he taught and wrote art criticism. He wrote several collections of poetry including Houseboat Days, Flow Chart, And the Stars Were Shining, and Turandot and Other Poems. He received a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1976 for Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. He also received the Antonio Feltrinelli International Prize for Poetry in 1992, the Ambassador Book Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008, and the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2011. In 1993, the French government made him a Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He also translated the poems of Pierre Martory. He died on September 3, 2017 at the age of 90.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The New York Poets: Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler : an Anthology, Volume 1; G - Reference,Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series; New York Poets S
• Authors: Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler
• Editor: Mark Ford
• Contributor: Mark Ford
• Publisher: Carcanet, 2004
• ISBN: 1857547349, 9781857547344
• Length: 214 pages
• Subjects: Poetry / American / General; Poetry / Anthologies (multiple authors); Poetry / General