Meditation: On Three-Fifths Joy

Great artists steal, so let's piggyback on AT:SF's great idea and do the same here in New York. If you've got art to donate to an online auction to benefit the Hall Farm Center for Arts and Education, which sends kids from Vermont and New York City to share their photography skills with the people of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, please let me know.

And no Art Month would be complete without a toast to Frank O'Hara, well-known as the consummate "painter's poet" but less so as a student of "Spartan chic," or so says John Ashbery in his tribute:

I too stayed at the Robinsons' and remember admiring Frank's room for the kind of Spartan chic he always managed to create around him. The room looked out on a courtyard of trees and was practically bare except for an army cot and blanket and a frying pan on the floor, used as an ashtray, an idea he got from George Montgomery, a sort of arbiter of Spartan chic who had been at Harvard with us. Hence, no doubt, the line: "How many trees and frying pans I've loved and lost." There were probably reproductions from MOMA and maybe a clay candelabra, but I don't remember them.

Even if you're somebody who doesn't especially like poetry (which is to say, pretty much everybody, and who can blame you?), Frank O'Hara's poems are just great role models for urbanites:

"Cosmopolitan, witty and open to life, the poems established a tone that was two-fifths melancholy, three-fifths joy."

--David Lehman, "O'Hara's Artful Life." Art in America, February 2000.

Comments (9)

Odd comment about everybody doesn't like poetry. Says who? I can see referring to "somebody who doesn't like lima beans (which is to say, pretty much everybody)" or "somebody who doesn't like belly button lint (which is to say, pretty much everybody)" but -- poetry? Am I a "weirdy" because I love poetry? Not all poetry and not all poets, just like I don't love all literature and all authors, but you're dismissing an entire expressive form because -- why?

I love poetry (Hell, I almost majored in poetry!!), but know lots of people who don't. No need to sweat it, Robin. Some people wouldn't know a brick of gold if it landed in their lap. What irks me about this post is the "and who can blame you?" in that line. Shannon, what's that about?

I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes - this one from Joubert:

“YOU WILL FIND POETRY NOWHERE UNLESS YOU BRING SOME WITH YOU.”

I'm just sayin'....

"Even if you're somebody who doesn't especially like poetry (which is to say, pretty much everybody, and who can blame you?),"

Um, excuse me but why are you dissing poetry and people who like poetry? - this is uncalled for and has nothing to do with what you're writing about and this kind of comment does not belong on the AT board

I suspect that people are overreacting to this post.

I just think it's a uninformed comment to make, especially in a community like AT. If people here take such care in the small things like what perfect sketch to hang over a toilet, then that same group will most likely enjoy the literary nuance poetry provides. I know the Gillingham-Ryans do...they post stuff here all the time.

Hi Shannon,

My emails to you have been sent back. I would like to donate an 11x14 photograph to the AT Hall Farm auction. Please let me know what I should do.

Thanks,

Rona

Sorry my comment about not espeically liking poetry rubbed some the wrong way--since I've done the weekly Poet Laureate post on AT for a couple of years now, I thought most folks knew that was tongue-in-cheek. Having gotten an MFA in poetry, I feel entitled to poke fun at the discipline.

Rona, sorry your email bounced--try sholman{at}mac{dot}com.

For Robin (happilyever): I find belly button lint takes on a new aura of charm, mystery and desirability when one begins to collect enough lint to fill a small pillow.