MEDITATIONS IN AN EMERGENCY

by Frank O'Hara ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 10, 1967

Marius Bewley once described O'Hara's poetry as having the effect of brightly colored streamers fluttering in front of a fan. The remark, though meant to be disparaging, is a rather apt metaphor in getting at the imagistic leaps, abstract glitter and witty fantasies on basically sentimental themes which figure so prominently in O'Hara's verbal designs. ""What is happening to me,"" he wrote, ""allowing for lies and exaggerations which I try to avoid, goes into my poems. I don't think my experiences are clarified or made beautiful for myself or anyone else, they are just there in whatever form I can find them."" Meditations in an Emergency, a reissue of a volume published a decade ago, would seem to be O'Hara's finest achievement, displaying a sprightly shaped diction, a creative elegance and joyful control which the later, more experimental works, especially' Second Avenue and Love Poems (Tentative Title), tended to make skittish and affected. The book is noteworthy, too, in developmental range, extending from such early concoctions as ""Chez Jane,"" with its mixture of Stevens and the French Surrealists, to the title-poem or ""Invincibility,"" among others, where free-wheeling explosions, both very colorful and poignant, bring out the late New Yorker's singular, quirky tone.

Pub Date: May 10, 1967

ISBN: 0802134521

Page Count: -

Publisher: Grove

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1967

Categories: NONFICTION