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Frank O'Hara (1926-66) composed poems 'any time, any place', collaborating with and inspired by a circle of artists, musicians and poets, immersed in the creative life of New York. For O'Hara, the city was a place of possibility, both disorientating and exciting, and his poems have an immediacy that draws its energies from the pace and rhythms of city life, and from the contemporary artforms of jazz, film and painting. It is this openness to experience that makes O'Hara an indispensable poet of the imaginative experience of the modern city. Reviewing this new selection in the Guardian, Charles Bainbridge wrote: 'Frank O'Hara is a wonderful poet - funny, moving, chatty, engaging, enthusiastic, risk-taking, elegiac, supremely urban - and anything that encourages people to read him is a good thing. His poems have a disarming intimacy, a kind spontaneous enthusiasm and his work proves, with tremendous elan and energy, that you don't have to adopt a solemn tone in order to write poetry of seriousness and purpose. As O'Hara himself says of the nature of writing in the brilliantly comic "Personism: A Manifesto": "You just go on your nerve.If someone's chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don't turn around and shout, 'Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep'." ' ... Read more

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The Museum Of Morden Art 1966 ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Sexy sculptor!
One of those collectible catalogs of an art show. Tipped in addenda is added bonus in my copy. Themes include Leda and the Swan, Venus, and other sexy ideas, including other Greek heros.

About 60 pages, 1966, with very stiff covers. Great deal, recommended. ... Read more

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This book examines the response of twentieth-century American poetry to the proliferation of technical and visual media. It treats the modern poet's problem of how to accommodate a cultural focus on photo-realism and technologically enhanced vision in a verbal aesthetic medium that itself generates no actual images. Relying on references to material media in the poets' correspondence and biographies, as well as on tropes and visual semiotics in the poems, the project explores the paradoxical sensation of reality effects in language. ... Read more

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"What was great about the fifties is that for one brief moment — maybe, say, six weeks — nobody understood art. That’s why it all happened." — Morton Feldman

Morton Feldman (1926-1987) is among the most influential American composers of the 20th century. While his music is known for its extreme quiet and delicate beauty, Feldman himself was famously large and loud. His writings are both funny and illuminating, not only about his own music but about the entire New York School of painters, poets, and composers that coalesced in the 1950s, including his friends Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank O’Hara, and John Cage.

Together with John Cage, Feldman is the principal representative of the New York School of composers, a group of American avant-gardists who in the 1950s and 1960s challenged the European music establishment with their use of graphic scores, chance techniques, and indeterminate compositions. Yet despite Feldman’s devotion to these radical innovations, his music was known above all for its sensuousness and melancholy. "There never was and there is not now in my mind any doubt about its beauty," wrote John Cage in his landmark book Silence. "It is, in fact, sometimes too beautiful."

It is Feldman’s intuitive, almost spiritual approach to music that has caused him to become one of the most performed composers of our time; since his death in 1987, no fewer than 80 CDs of Feldman’s music have been released, and his works can now be heard in classical music halls worldwide. His music has also won a large following outside the classical establishment: Feldman is one of the most listened to and discussed composers among fans (and practitioners) of avant-garde rock and techno music.

Give My Regards to Eighth Street is an authoritative collection of Feldman’s writings, culled from published articles, program notes, LP liners, lectures, interviews, and unpublished writings in the Morton Feldman Archive at SUNY Buffalo (where Feldman taught for many years). Feldman’s writings explore his music and his theories about music, but they also make clear how heavily Feldman was influenced by painting and by his friendships with the Abstract Expressionists. As editor B.H. Friedman notes in his introduction, Feldman’s "writing about art is also of lasting importance." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Whirring coat music-reading/ in a new sort of invented Light
It won't matter if you are only casually familiar with Morton Feldman's work. You will still revel in 'Give My Regards to Eight Street.' The book is a collection of short pieces that will have you entering the mind of Feldman with all his plucky demotic brilliance. You often will feel as you become rapt reading these snippets no more than a gossamer like coat of music for all weather, entering a perfectly vibrating void that returns you to this lush place of mind.

This brilliant artist relates how strongly he was influenced by and thought more like (in some respects) the painters of his day (Primarily from 1950's...) including Rothko, Guston, and many others, as opposed to some of his musical contemporaries.His discussions of his own music and contemporaries such as Cage or Wolf, as well as 'modernists' such as Webern or Stravinsky, never fail to provoke thought, smiles, and wonder. Feldman's take on these artists and his own music and thinking in relation to New York during its artistic renaissance is never inaccessible to someone unfamiliar with music theory or reading music for example. Hs writing is crammed with exciting stories and important reminders presented in a conversational tone that is always lifting.

Wondering if there's more
If there's one book on the mystery that is Morton Feldman, it's "Give My Regards", it's in his own words, for starters. In it he covers his fascination and love of painting, particularly shedding light on his relationship with Philip Guston, and giving pretty expansive coverage of his early years as a composer in the 1950s.

Along with his views on art, hegives insight into his musical philosophy, some places echoing what his colleague and friend John Cage would say. Feldman even gives sharp musical criticism about Cage, while at the same time, extolling their friendship, and writing about him in the most flattering light.

Aside from his relationship with Cage, Feldman covers Stockhausen and Boulez quite a lot, paying particular attention to Boulez's philosophy, as he humorously tears it apart. While not compiled by Feldman himself (complied by his widow and released in 2000) it gives a great look into Feldman, the composer, writer, and art critic. The book is even interspersed with various liner notes he wrote from his numerous recordings, and programs. At twelve dollars, I strongly recommend this book to anyone that wants to learn about Morton Feldman.

The Ever-Lasting Yes
Morton Feldman's essays and liner notes are every bit as challenging as his music.In fact, I would like to turn one of Morty's quotable lines on its ear and say that "Feldman couldn't write a note unless it was literary."Of course, I'm inserting Feldman's name for the orginal Ives (see page 165 of this book), but I have to say that this composer provides in these pages the "narrative dark matter and coherent strange attractors" for his--in the main--disjunctive sounds.With this book Feldman positions himself in the same great tradition of writer-musicians as Berlioz, while all the while disparaging that very tradition!In fact, I would say that of all the recent experimentalists--Cage included--Feldman had to have been the most literary.

What a fine mind, and what a great loss to have only one side of Feldman's legendary conversational powers in this book, but, until everyone in the world has sense enough to stop what they're doing and applaud Morton Feldman's brilliance and the END of TIME COMES and Feldman himself descends from on high seated on a golden bar stool, ready to take on all comers, they will have to be content with this written fossil.And of course the music...but that's another story.

This book includes an appreciation of Morty and his work by Frank O'Hara, another person I wish I'd met.

a primary document of the American avant-garde
" The day Jackson Pollock died I called a certain man I knew- a very great painter-and told him the news. After a long pause he said, in a voice so low it was barely a whisper,' That son of a b---he did it'. . . .With this supreme gesture Pollock had wrapped up an era and walked away from it." Feldman was very much part of that era, the Fifties when American art was becoming the most important post-war art there was its unique expressions. Sure Europeans tried to copy us but only became more academic about as Boulez and his excursions into chance/aleatoric gesturing. This collection of essays very clearly reveals how important American expeimentalism was to music. Feldman's forever endeavor to merely create, create at a high intensity working like a Dutch diamond cutter,or lens grinder,toying with creative means as his use of indelible ink, this he said makes you think about what your writing than how you are writing, puts the creative process back into the head.Or composing at the piano, which slows you down so you need to think more. He followed the intellectual currents, anything that brought a sense of richness and other dimension to his art, he knew for instance Henri Bergson's concept of memory and time,how that might affect his music,and painterly means was second nature to him hanging out at the Cedar Bar in New York talking for hours on Light,texture,perception,shape,design,concept, facility,gesture,timbre,tone,chiarscuro, there is ample historical data here as well, almost like a subtext of these ,like an unwritten history of the avant-garde, a "Conversation with Stravinsky"(not really),his first meeting with John Cage(after a performance of Webern), Earle Brown, Christian Wolff, also his travels to Berlin, and England and experiencing the avant-garde through Cornelius Cardew, and British experimentalism.His last years was devoted to long durational compositions, and he merely said he had more time to compose in these years,but Feldman here is filled with marvelous quotes,things,items,shapes for the mind"I knew I was going to be a professional the day I first became practical.Practicality took the form of copying out my music neatly,keeping my desk tidy and organized-all the unimportant things that seem unrelated to the work,yet somehow do affect it.". He also knows how to look from greater heights from mountains, tothe substance of modernity, those who stopped creating and became more interested in themselves as Stockhausen were "Modernists"; for Feldman allowing your materials,the shape,structures of your music tell you the secrets of creativity was most important and became a cause. ... Read more

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With new interest in poetry as a performative art, and with prewar experiments much in mind, the young poets of postwar America infused the stage with the rhythms and shocks of their poetry. These energies manifested themselves all at once, and through the decades have continued to grow and mutate, innovating a form of writing that defies boundaries of genre. THE KENNING ANTHOLOGY OF POETS THEATER: 1945-1985 documents the emergence, growth, and varied fortunes of the form over decades of American literary history, with a focus on key regional movements. The largest and most comprehensive anthology of its kind yet assembled, the volume collects classics, long out of print rarities and texts from unpublished manuscripts. Copiously annotated, it will be an indispensable reference for students of postwar American poetry and avant garde theater. Included are works by Jack Spicer, John Ashbery, Michael McClure, Diane di Prima, Amiri Baraka, Hannah Weiner, Barbara Guest, Sonia Sanchez, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Carla Harryman, Charles Bernstein, Leslie Scalapino, Kathy Acker, and many others. A unique feature of the book is its editors' notes even on works omitted but falling within the anthology's purview, including Pedro Pietri's The Masses Are Asses and Jessica Hagedorn's Tenement Lover. Erudite yet highly readable, the plays and prefatory matter offer a highly entertaining glimpse of the ways in which poets have used the theater to widen their audience, develop new techniques, or negotiate their aesthetic community's precepts and desires. In the process, some of the most mature and progressive work within and about the theater was produced, and is at last gathered in one place. ... Read more

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Letters beginning: Pearl Without Price...Sweets...Bright bauble...Dear Kitten...My wounded wood dove
Frank O'Hara died in 1966, James Schuyler in 1991. Soon thereafter, William Corbett began editing the "Selected Letters of James Schuyler, 1951-1991" (paper 2004). During his 13 years of preparation, he was unable to obtain Jimmy's letters to O'Hara from the latter's executor(s). Better late than never, Frank's sister finally passed the letters to Corbett, thus the present little book (paper 2006).

Surprisingly, the letters span only 1954-1958. They are not windbags, but balloons, totaling 32. Jimmy's happiness, sweetness, and ease in writing Frank just bubbles, as if they were childish identical twins, hugging and kissing in all naturalness and trust. But as I felt about the Selected Letters, the content avoids the shadows, the revelations, the troubles, the Unvarnished Truth.

So, these letters of 1954-1958: what was happening in those years? and just before and after? I referred to Nathan Kernan's valuable detailed Chronology printed in the Diary (publ. 1997).
In late 1951, Schuyler's first mental breakdown resulted in several months of hospitalization.
In fall 1952, Jimmy became Frank's roommate in a cheap apartment on NY's East Side.
In mid 1953, Jimmy met duo-pianists Fizdale and Gold and began an extended relationship with the latter.
In August 1954, Jimmy went to Europe with the touring piano duo.
In February 1955, back in NY, Jimmy lived with Gold but spent a lot of time at Frank's apartment, though Joe LeSueur had moved in as Frank's lover. Jimmy also spent time with the Fairfield Porter family in Maine.
In 1956, Jimmy broke with Gold and returned to Frank & Joe's apartment. In July on Fire Island, Jimmy had a serious anxiety attack, and Frank helped him. In the fall, Jimmy went into analysis.
In January 1957, Frank & Joe moved, Jimmy having become a burden. Jimmy began an affair with art dealer Donald Droll. He began working at the Museum of Modern Art, where Frank had a much better job.
In 1958, Jimmy divided his time between Donald's apartment and the East Side apartment.
In latter 1959, Jimmy & Donald became just friends, and Jimmy moved out of the East Side apartment prior to demolition. He & Frank continued to socialize in NY, but less and less.
In March 1961, Jimmy was hospitalized again for a few months, and such episodes would continue.

Surely, Jimmy saved Frank's letters to him. Much better would be the present book if these letters could have been shuffled in, so these two boys could put their arms over one another's shoulders and smile through the Five Golden Years.

For this little book, Editor Corbett provides a little Introduction summarizing Jimmy's & Frank's closeness. And a little Epilogue commenting on Schuyler's elegiac poem for Frank, "Buried at Springs," and Schuyler's poem of greeting, "To Frank O'Hara," when O'Hara's Collected Poems were published (1971).

The book's front cover design is so different and sooo silly. Truncated bodies of two comic-strip first-graders pasted together, type in two poorly legible vertical strips. Better reserved for Joe Brainard's "lost" Nancy correspondence. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A Gorgeous Recording
Frank O'Hara is a true original.Now to the real point of this review.Don't get duped into paying ninety dollars for this recording.Go to 'books on tape', a website division of random house, the publisher of the 'voice of the poet' series, and buy it for twenty.I hope you see this before the amazon henchmen take it down.Happy listening.

Beautiful writer
I think this series is brilliant. Hearing Frank O'hara read in his own voice is uplifting, but somewhat exclusive. I love his writing, and how this cd shows the time of vocal recording and how it is so much more perfected today. i write and read aloud poetry, prose, and short stories, and unless there is a malfuction in recording equipment my stuff will never sound as timeless as this collection. If you like poetry and don't know Frank O'hara, I think you should check him out. If you don't know what he is talking about sometimes...then...research it. Otherwise just enjoy it. He died at around forty years old so, what you see is what you get..there is no more. Check his books out too. It's worth it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

good
Some good stories fill this volume.But the recent attempt at a John O'Hara revival failed for a reason. He's not that good. If you've read one O'Hara story, you've read them all. O'Hara's same obsessions are played out in every story. His two obsessions were 1) Status2) The obsession with and assumption that if a male and female are left alone together, one will immediately try and jump the other's bones. Maybe I've led a dull life, but I've actually been left alone with girls and women when neither I nor they tried to bed the other. The other thing is O'Hara thought he was one of the greatest writers ever...but, by his own admission, was not that well read. He mainly read Hemingway and Fitzgerald over and over. Not bad role models at all. But O'Hara famously said in a review of a Hemingway book that Hemingway was the greatest writer since Shakespeare (suggesting, of course, that O'Hara was the SECOND greatest writer since Shakespeare!). But O'Hara once responsed to a critic who said his writing resembled Tolstoy's (pulEEASE!) that, "Gee, I've never even READ Tolstoy." Now how could O'Hara say Hemingway was the greatest writer since Shakespeare when O'Hara had never read Tolstoy?!!! Even ego-ridden Hemingway admitted Tolstoy was a greater writer than himself. And how can a literary writer dare sit down to write when he hasn't yet read the master, Tolstoy. O'Hara was okay, but not great. Yeah, no wonder that revival attempt in the mid-90's flopped.

a shame this book is out-of-print
This is an astonishing collection of short stories from a past master thateveryone has forgotten, but could surely learn from, or relish. I liked thenovellas best, including "Imagine Kissing Pete", "NinetyMinutes Away", and "Natica Jackson." What I was astonishedby was how quickly they were read; it was like watching and feeling lifeunfolding before my eyes. The first masterpiece in this collection is"Over the River and Through the Wood" that must be one of themost disturbing stories ever written. It is disgusting to me that not asingle O'Hara story was included in the recent "Best American ShortStories of the Century"; if a claim can be made that Hemingway,Faulkner and Fitzgerald must be included, then so must O'Hara. John O'Harais an American legend. He should be revived. ... Read more