Next Wednesday, João and I will be reading a few poems from two New York School poets, Frank O'Hara and Barbara Guest. Bellow, you will find the links to the poems we'll be reading and discussing in class, as well as some information on these poets and the movement in which they took part.
Also, we'd like to leave you a few questions in order to get the conversation going.
Questions:
1-In what way can we say that the tension between privacy and publicity is explored in O'Hara's "Poem" ["Lana Turner has collapsed!"]? Also, how does this relate to the overall poetics of the New York School?
2-How does Barbara Guest explore literary constraints in "The Hungry Knight"?
Links:
New York School
Frank O'Hara
Barbara Guest
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ReplyDeleteWe can say there is tension between "privacy and publicity" underlined in this poem seeing that this poem was written in the early 60's. This is the time when pop culture and Hollywood were booming, and Frank O'Hara explores the attention provided to an ordinary event which was only given importance because it involved a Hollywood star. The collapsing of Lana Turner would not be newsworthy had it happened to a regular person instead of a movie star.
ReplyDeleteThe New York School of poets was connected to painters associated with abstract expressionism, and both these forms of culture would be considered high culture. On the other hand, pop culture was associated with consumerism. I believe the poem displays a form of criticism in its own way, portraying how one's daily life is flooded with, seemingly, mundane pop culture news.