Fun and Play with O’Hara and His Progeny!

Jennifer Brewington’s article “The Tradition of Play in the New York School of Poets” focuses on one of the more charming aspects of our reading this week: the “play” that frequently occurs in the poetry of the New York school. She defines play as “provid[ing] a method for processing the chaos and suffering of the fragmented postmodern world. It builds on connections and binds the individual to others by creating a public comprised of the private” (58). Furthermore, she claims that this play in the New York school makes for a complex, dual nature in their poetry: “The lines between humor and tragedy blend as they do in life. The same poem that begins with flippant and irreverent humor turns serious and earnest in the last stanza. Or, conversely, a poem about mortality may be disguised as a poem about hands” (59). Brewington exemplifies this sense of play in poetry by explicating Frank O’Hara’s “For Grace, After a Party,” and delineates it in poems by David Kirby, Billy Collins, and Barbara Hamby.

When doing a close reading of O’Hara’s “For Grace, After a Party,” Brewington notes the play in the poem as existing in “[t]he form, language, tone and setting shift. Style is conversation, personal” (59). She explains that the poem shifts from deeply personal and conversational to public by its very existence; the intimate tone of the poem is exposed for all to see. She demonstrates this especially when she says “O’Hara invites readers to see both sides of the conversation. This playfulness of tone allows the poem to rise above the neat categories of serious or comedic by being both at once. The shift from the public space of the party to the private space of the disappointment of receiving “just plain scrambled eggs” allows the poem to be accessed by all readers” (61). In such a way the public, within the poem at the party or without as the reader, O’Hara’s sense of play is manifest.

Brewington then goes on to note that this style of play is present in the work of other poets that followed in O’Hara’s footsteps, the first of which she discusses is Kirby. In reading “Ode to My Hands,” she notes: “The turn of subject and the idea of writing a love poem to the self are absurd in the playful, postmodern sense revered by the NYS. It does not care what love poems are supposed to be about” (61). Brewington remarks that, “[l]ike O’Hara before him, Kirby invites readers to the party and the conversation that follows in private” (62). This accessibility is a far cry from the poems of T. S. Eliot, or perhaps even Zukofsky (in some of his A segments) or Ginsberg (in Howl, where dozens of specific references to literature or events/places are made); the reader is simply engaged with the poem on a personal level that does not require extensive literary or encyclopedic knowledge.

Branching off of her comments on tonal play, Brewington discusses Billy Collins’ relation to O’Hara, specifically in terms of Collins’ humor. Before addressing humor in Collins’ actual work, she offers Collins’ connection to the New York school on an academic level: “[Collins] points out that what critics of the New York School of Poets fail to acknowledge is a return to play that was removed through the process of making poetry elite. Collins differentiates the New York School of Poets from their contemporaries in the academic elite by adding, ‘they value comedy’” (62-63). Indeed, it seems that much of the criticism leveled against the New York school is that they did not take their poetry as seriously as poetry required, an affront to New Criticism that was remarked on in our readings as well. In Collins’ “The Lanyard,” the speaker equates his gift of a lanyard made at summer camp to his mother’s gift of life to her son. Brewington connects Collins’ humor with O’Hara’s sense of play: “He highlights his mother’s sacrifices for him by downplaying the comparison. The play within the poem reflects O’Hara’s sense of play…[t]he poem invites readers in—they become part of the intimate circle. His mother is our mother; his lanyard our lanyard” (63).

Brewington then moves to Barbara Hamby, relaying that Hamby’s poems “are so saturated with references that this becomes comedic in itself. She challenges the idea of the elite artist being separate from the common public by having them fraternize in poems: high art alongside low art, pop culture alongside high culture” (63). Brewington, though noting the constant allusion’s in Hamby’s work, focuses more on the tonal shift she claims is central to the idea of play in the New York school and its progeny. Specifically, in Hamby’s poem “I Find an Entrance to Hell,” about a woman who accompanies her mother to a government office in a vain attempt to collect Social Security after her father’s death, Hamby notes: “Even if mothers and fathers do not directly reflect universal experience, the complexity of the relationships draws readers to make personal connections” (64). Hamby’s relatability invites the reader into a private affair, made public by the poem, in order to enable them to “make personal connections.”

Concluding her essay, Brewington ties all of the poets and poems she has discussed together: “In each of the poems discussed here, O’Hara’s influence is apparent. At the same time, the individual poet’s voice is equally distinct and new” (65). This unity restates a point she had made previously, that “[e]ach of the poets mentioned here, from O’Hara to Kirby to Collins to Hamby, have exquisite senses of humor intricately woven throughout their poetry” (62). Poetry at play, a concept championed by O’Hara, was an influential enough concept that it passed on to other poets who, though they introduced their own variations, through its direct use became heirs to the New York school.

I have generally appreciated humor in poetry (if I can recognize it), and therefore I connected rather quickly to the more humorous of our reading this week. After reading this article, however, I might be able to put into words why that is. There is something to the idea of “getting the joke,” but the invitation to intimacy, sharing a joke (or a Coke), certainly introduces a human connection that we have perhaps not seen as readily apparent or as easily in our other readings.

Works Cited

Brewington, Jennifer. “The Tradition of Play in the New York School of Poets.” Valley Voices: A Literary Review, vol. 14, no. 2, 2014, pp. 58-65. MLA International Bibliography.

I was particularly taken by some of the more playful poems in this week’s reading. What makes these poems “playful?” Is it the shift in tone or sense of humor of the speaker/poet that Brewington suggests? Is it wit? Does this play find its success in the invitation of the reader into the private in the poem or is there another effect?