Frank O’Hara was a front-runner of the New York Poets, one who melded the school’s vision in language of cacophony and, often, absurdity. Many of his poems indite quirk, humor, and somewhat banal routines of daily life. He was famously prolific in his poetry, though much of it remained unpublished. The poem “The Day Lady Died” that I’ll look at today is from his poetry anthology entitled Lunch Poems.
O’Hara immediately and continuously through the poem grounds his readers with precise details, beginning with the time, date, year, and location. He depicts his schedule (something he’s well-known to do) and tells us: “…I go get a shoeshine/because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton/at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner/and I don’t know the people who will feed me” (Oxford, 795). But we have a previous idea of the context of his poem based on its title, so why are these precursory details necessary?
Several influential artistic celebrities (not just actors and singers) died last year. Do you remember with any measure of vividness where you were upon hearing the any of them? If not last year, was there another time? Political tragedies (shooting of John F. Kennedy, 9/11) have perhaps a more ubiquitous effect on an entire people, but I’m specifically asking about someone involved in the arts.
Why? Because the performing and visual arts heavily influenced O’Hara’s work. He was a front desk clerk at the Museum of Modern Art for years, and was known to scribble poetry on his lunch breaks. The best example of his mourning a loss outside his specific craft lies here, with the poem to Billie Holliday, who had died early that day on July 17, 1959.
O’Hara performs his intended errands in the city, doing normal things: “I go to the bank and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)/ doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life” (795). He then catalogues friends who he considers buying assorted things for, eventually settling on a “Verlaine/after practically going to sleep with quandariness.” He continues his journey through the city, solidifying a strong sense of normalcy to his readers, when he purchases a “New York Post/with her face on it/and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of/leaning on the John door in the 5 SPOT/while she whispered a song along the keyboard/to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing” (796).
Frank O’Hara must have greatly admired Billie Holliday in order to remember a specific moment when he watched her perform. Perhaps this was the last time he saw her perform? All of the crisp, concrete details leading up the moment he realizes she’s died give readers a sense of his grief without being melodramatic. Here, he immortalizes his initial reaction to the death of someone he loved, while paying a beautiful homage to her in the last few lines of the poem.
The specificity in mourning the loss of an artist perhaps doesn’t have as much to do about the particular artwork contributions alone, but what they have the power to teach us about ourselves: the easy inspiration that comes with being plugged into an artistic community, their influence and inspiration in our own lives upon studying their work, and the death of part of a communication thread that accompanies their losses.
The interconnectedness and intimacy of a inclusive network of artists, writers, poets, and painters is one of the effective factors, historically speaking, that create a plethora of rich new work, or even a diverse new arts movement in America. Throughout our class, we’ve seen how visual and performing arts have influenced literary movements. The performing arts found a vein in the Beat movement, Harlem and the Beats were greatly influenced by music, specifically jazz, and the Imagists were influenced by visual artists. The connection of artists to literature is no happy accident; as you’ve noted here, the combination of arts help us deal with our own losses, our emotions, and our ever-changing world. The community of artists is one that helps spur more innovation and creates a sense of urgency in collaboration, an ekphrastic energy that we’ve seen trending across schools of poetry.