As I was reading Lunch Poems, my mind began to wander, and for some reason I kept thinking about what O’Hara’s parents would think of his poetry. It seems as though of all the occupations parents dream of their kids undertaking, such as practicing medicine or law, writing poetry is never on the list. I’m guessing O’Hara’s parents weren’t too thrilled about the idea, either. But to exacerbate the situation, his poetry is confusing and does not live up to the classic image of poetry: there’s no rhyme scheme or apparent structure. If you were to read it aloud, it wouldn’t even sound like poetry; it would sound like one huge run-on sentence. To all but the poetically inclined, his poems would seem talentless and worthless. I doubt his parents understood or appreciated his poetry at all. To prove my point, I will ask you to read the following example as if you were O’Hara’s parents; read this as if this was your (adult) son’s work:
Wouldn’t it be funny
if The Finger had designed us
to shit just once a week?
all week long we’d get fatter
and fatter and then on Sunday morning
while everyone’s in church
ploop!
I do have an appreciation for poetry, yet even I cannot help but question the value of this poem! Imagine what his parents thought! I do not mean to insult O’Hara’s style of poetry (maybe just this poem); I simply intend to ponder the kind of relationship O’Hara had with his parents.
The obvious poem to mention in this post would be “Ave Maria.” Unfortunately for me, we already talked about this poem in class, so I don’t want to be redundant. However, I do want to point out that all of O’Hara’s poetry seems to have a personal quality, and so it would not be unreasonable to say that he might be voicing some of his inner childhood angst in “Ave Maria.” This could be another indicator of possible family tension.
Of course, I could just google Frank O’Hara and find out the facts, rather than making presumptions based on his poetry. But there’s a risk in doing so: I might discover I’m completely wrong. So if you don’t mind, I’ll just stick to my theories.
After all, ignorance IS bliss.
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3 comments:
It seems a bit sketchy to stretch the family-centric message of "Ave Maria" to the entirety of "Lunch Poems."
That said, I don't really get the point of O'Hara's poems. They seem mundane, commonplace, without readily apparent common ties and without obvious relevancy. The book is not an easy read, although taken literally it is easy to write off, but seriously.. no notes? No insight into the mind of the writer?
Come to think of it, the fact that my mind immediately jumped to "he was probably on drugs" says more about me than it says about his poems.. it says I am not all that pleased with having to think really hard about a poem. And that, it seems, rather defeats the purpose of O'Hara writing in the first place.
Who is he writing for, I wonder? Is he writing for the public, the reader? OR is he writing simply for the sake of writing? I refer, of course, to the idea that he wrote in the 50s, past the era of idealistic modernism, and perhaps he was simply trying to make a living.. catering to an audience, shall we say. This is overly simplistic, but again, I don't see a clear message or relevant issue he addresses. He was writing in a time of unparalleled prosperity for the United States, no? What exactly is there to complain about? Perhaps I speak sharply in retrospect.
I digress. Basically, I don't think the parents-movie thing is a core message of his poems.
Ha ha I totally love your example of how O'Hara's parents must have felt after reading poetry that their son wrote. Personally, if I had a kid that wrote stuff like that, I would probably think there was something really wrong with him or her, but then if that is what he or she wants to do, then i would let them pursuit it no matter how weird and odd my kid's writing were.
I personally think that the purpose of O'Hara and Lunch Poems is to represent inner thoughts of O'Hara in such a creative way that it would make no sense to normal readers unless if we dove into O'Hara's brain (VERY UNLIKELY). But no matter how people felt about Lunch Poems, I actually liked reading it compared to the infamous The Wasteland.
It's interesting to think about how his parents would react to O'Hara's writing, but what about how our parents would react to our own writing? I'm not really talking about the essays that we turn in for our classes, but our really personal writing, especially poetry. Personally, I would prefer it if they never read it or at least responded to it, haha. I think if we write, or do anything for that matter, with our parents and their reactions in mind we are bound to get very little accomplished, or at least the end result would be transformed because of our concerns for our parents.
Maybe that's just my experience with my parents though...
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