Frank O'Hara Quotes - Page 2

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Eyes Heart Lying Mothers Pain Past Running

I have been to lots of parties and acted perfectly disgraceful but I never actually collapsed oh Lana Turner we love you get up

Frank O'Hara

Party, Love You, Excellence

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.449, Univ of California Press

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There were occasionally rifts in the cloud where the face of a woman appeared, frowning.

Frank O'Hara

Clouds, Rift, Frowning

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.167, Univ of California Press

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I call
to the spirits of other lands to make fecund my existence

Frank O'Hara

Inspirational, Land, Spirit

Frank O'Hara (1969). “Odes”

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When I am feeling depressed and anxious sullen
all you have to do is take your clothes off
and all is wiped away revealing life tenderness
that we are flesh and breathe and are near us
as you are really as you are I become as I
really am alive and knowing vaguely what is
and what is important to me above the intrusions
of incident and accidental relationships
which have nothing to do with my life

Frank O'Hara

I Love You, Clothes, Feelings

"Love Poems".

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Mothers of America let your kids go to the movies! get them out of the house so they won't know what you're up to it's true that fresh air is good for the body but what about the soul that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images and when you grow old as grow old you must they won't hate you

Frank O'Hara

Mother, Hate, Kids

Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery (2014). “Lunch Poems: 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.42, City Lights Books

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I loved her fright, which was against me into the air! and the diamond white of her forelock which seemed to smart with thoughts as my heart smarted with life! and she'd toss her head with the pain and paw the air and champ the bit, as if I were Endymion and she, moon-like, hated to love me.

Frank O'Hara

Pain, Smart, Heart

Frank O'Hara (1967). “Meditations in an Emergency”, p.12, Grove Press

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Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I don't give a damn whether they eat or not. Forced feeding leads to excessive thinness (effete). Nobody should experience anything they don't need to, if they don't need poetry bully for them. I like the movies too. And after all, only Whitman and Crane and Williams, of the American poets, are better than the movies.

Frank O'Hara

Mother, Kids, Giving

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it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

Frank O'Hara

New York, Believe, Light

Frank O'Hara (1965). “Love Poems (tentative Title)”

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I wouldn’t want to be faster or greener than now if you were with me O you were the best of all my days!

Frank O'Hara

Want, Faster, Greener

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.30, Univ of California Press

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Poem (Lana Turner has collapsed!) Lana Turner has collapsed! I was trotting along and suddenly it started raining and snowing and you said it was hailing but hailing hits you on the head hard so it was really snowing and raining and I was in such a hurry to meet you but the traffic was acting exactly like the sky and suddenly I see a headline LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED! there is no snow in Hollywood there is no rain in California I have been to lots of parties and acted perfectly disgraceful but I never actually collapsed oh Lana Turner we love you get up

Frank O'Hara

Party, Rain, Love You

Frank O'Hara (2014). “Lunch Poems: 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.64, City Lights Books

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I'm becoming the street. Who are you in love with? me? Straight against the light I cross.

Frank O'Hara

Light, Becoming, Crosses

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.126, Univ of California Press

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If I am ever to find these trees meaningful I must have you by the hand. As it is, they stretch dusty fingers into an obscure sky, and the snow looks up like a face dirtied with tears. Should I cry out and see what happens? There could only be a stranger wandering in this landscape, cold, unfortunate, himself frozen fast in wintry eyes.

Frank O'Hara

Meaningful, Eye, Hands

Frank O'Hara (1967). “Meditations in an Emergency”, p.19, Grove Press

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down the sidewalk
where laborers feed their dirty
glistening torsos sandwiches
and Coca-Cola, with yellow helmets
on. They protect them from falling
bricks, I guess.

Frank O'Hara

Dirty, Fall, Cities

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.257, Univ of California Press

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After the first glass of vodka you can accept just about anything of life even your own mysteriousness you think it is nice that a box of matches is purple and brown and is called La Petite and comes from Sweden for they are words that you know and that is all you know words not their feelings or what they mean and you write because you know them not because you understand them because you don't you are stupid and lazy and will never be great but you do what you know because what else is there?

Frank O'Hara

Nice, Stupid, Writing

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.382, Univ of California Press

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Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern. The country is grey and brown and white in trees, snows and skies of laughter always diminishing, less funny not just darker, not just grey. It may be the coldest day of the year, what does he think of that? I mean, what do I? And if I do, perhaps I am myself again.

Frank O'Hara

Beautiful, Country, Laughter

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.202, Univ of California Press

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Leaf! you are so big! How can you change your color, then just fall! As if there were no such thing as integrity!

Frank O'Hara

Integrity, Fall, Color

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.21, Univ of California Press

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I love you. I love you, but I’m turning to my verses and my heart is closing like a fist.

Frank O'Hara

Love You, Heart, Fists

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.201, Univ of California Press

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It may be the coldest day of The year, what does he think of That? I mean, what do I? And if I do, Perhaps I am myself again.

Frank O'Hara

Mean, Thinking, Years

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.202, Univ of California Press

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Pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you.

Frank O'Hara

Pain, Logic, Produce

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There is a geography which holds its hands just so far from the breast and pushes you away, crying so.

Frank O'Hara

Hands, Cry, Geography

Frank O'Hara (1967). “Meditations in an Emergency”, p.15, Grove Press

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Kerouac: You're ruining American poetry, O'Hara. O'Hara: That's more than you ever did for it, Kerouac

Frank O'Hara

American Poetry

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There should be so much more, not of orange, of words, of how terrible orange is and life.

Frank O'Hara

Orange, Should, Terrible

Frank O'Hara (1995). “The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara”, p.262, Univ of California Press

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I take this for myself, and you take up the thread of my life between your teeth, tin thread and tarnished with abuse, you shall still hear as long as the beast in me maintains its taciturn power to close my lids in tears, and my loins move yet in the ennobling pursuit of all the worlds you have left me alone in, and would be the dolorous distraction from, while you summon your army of anguishes which is a million hooting blood vessels on the eyes and in the ears at that instant before death.

Frank O'Hara

Moving, Eye, Army

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I am ashamed of my century for being so entertaining but I have to smile.

Frank O'Hara

Century, Ashamed

"In Memory of My Feelings: A Selection of Poems".

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I wish I weren’t reeling at all.

Frank O'Hara

Wish

Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery (2014). “Lunch Poems: 50th Anniversary Edition”, p.29, City Lights Books

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Born: March 27, 1926
Died: July 25, 1966
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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