The great American poet Frank O’Hara was born on this date in 1926, and although his first love was music, he gave to the world verses as funny and silky and wonderful as anything America had yet produced. Unlike many of the poets of the latter half of the 20th century, he wrote work that required no hipster decoder-ring to access and appreciate; he was the bard of the everyday, weaving an irrepressible twinkle into almost everything he wrote. This was true of the man as well as his verse – his legions of friends and lovers would attest to it: there never was a kinder heart, a more generous soul, or a more playful spirit than Frank O’Hara.

Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding dvdrip The Hangover In 1966 he was struck by a jeep at the age of 40, and he died a day later. There will be no seminars on his problematic later work (as there always will be about his longer-lived exact contemporary, James Merrill) – instead, there’s only the one thick volume of his jaunty, knowing verses, standing as happy monuments to poetry’s power to move right to the essence of things. Many of you will know some of his poems already, perhaps because some passionate fan pressed them upon you (perhaps even because Open Letters’ Poetry Editor pressed them upon you – he gets around, after all, and like most poets, he loves O’Hara’s work!), but to mark the date one is offered here nonetheless: it’s one of his most-anthologized pieces, which just goes to show that even anthologists sometimes get it right:

A Step Away From Them

It’s my lunch hour, so I go

for a walk among the hum-colored

cabs. First, down the sidewalk

where laborers feed their dirty

glistening torsos sandwiches

and Coca-Cola, with yellow helmets

on. They protect them from falling

bricks, I guess. Then onto the

avenue where skirts are flipping

Candyman: Day of the Dead above heels and blow up over

grates. The sun is hot, but the

cabs stir up the air. I look

at bargains in wristwatches. There

are cats playing in the sawdust.

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On

to Times Square, where the sign

blows smoke over my head, and higher

the waterfall pours lightly. A

Negro stands in a doorway with a

toothpick, languorously agitating.

A blonde chorus girl clicks: he

smiles and rubs his chin. Everything

suddenly honks: it is 12:40 of

a Thursday.

Neon in daylight is a

great pleasure, as Edwin Denby would

write, as are light bulbs in daylight.

I stop for a cheeseburger at JULIET’s

CORNER. Giulietta Masina, wife of

Federico Fellini, e bell’ attrice.

And chocolate malted. A lady in foxes on such a day puts her poodle

in a cab.

There are several Puerto

Ricans on the avenue today, which

makes it beautiful and warm. First

Bunny died, then John Latouche,

then Jackson Pollock. But is the

earth as full of life as life was full, of them?

And one has eaten and one walks,

past the magazines with nudes

and the posters for BULLFIGHT and

the Manhattan Storage Warehouse,

which they’ll soon tear down. I

used to think they had the Armory

Show there.

A glass of papaya juice

and back to work. My heart is in my

pocket, it is Poems by Pierre Reverdy.

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