While reading Frank O’Hara’s short poems, one can easily understand that he had a painterly eye and a silvery personality. O’Hara in a limited number of lines has the literal power to paint an image of New York many New York agree with. In his piece, “Having a coke with you”, he displays a peaceful, more serene impression of New York. With the lines,

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

I imagine, the picture and video placed below. Among the city’s clamor rests a humming silence. In between the filing of masses from one location to another lives hushed composure. New York, because of the effect this one being has on him, is painted with a different lens. For O’Hare, with this person, he finds beauty in the chaos. He finds joy in the simplest things. Even the leisurely act of sharing a coke becomes sensuous. This concept is fortified when he states, “which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet…”. O’Hare has not experienced anything yet even when he has. He wishes to relive his life once again with this person, and only then will they haven meaning to him. He has visited the Polish Rider in the Frick multiple times, but has not seen it with eyes swayed by this one person.

O’Hare’s descriptions of life in New York is romanticized by his delicate descriptions. Phrases like “move so beautifully” and “like a tree breathing through its spectacles” highlight the purity in New York that many fail to realize exist. With buildings soaring into the sky, it becomes difficult to see the clouds beyond it. With the blaring sounds of cabs honking, it becomes nearly impossible to hear the Gray Partridge’s chirping songs. Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York, zooms out of the city and shows the grander scheme of things. Looking at New York in all its grandeur, one truly appreciates its hidden charm.

 

O’Hare’s poem “A Step Away from them” enticed me as well. It takes an entirely different approach as the aforementioned poem where it exposes the multifaceted workings of the city, as apposed to blurring the noise to make the silence louder. It speaks of one man walking through the city, and by the end of his journey, he takes note of the different people and cultures he comes in contact with in a short amount of time. O’Hare demonstrates the epitome of a diverse state when almost every stanza illustrates a different element that is only one cog that helps build what New York is. He sees laborers eating their lunch, girls trying to keep their skirts from flipping over the grate, cats playing in sawdust, a negro standing in a door way, Puerto Ricans, etc. This creates the perception that New York is disorganized with different people doing different things (something like the picture below). But what many must realize is that New York is just that. New York is an amalgamated system with every kind of person from every race and any culture. That is the beauty behind it, and it always will be.