After class on Wednesday, after office hours on Wednesday, after the readings on Wednesday, I was walking to the subway, listening to my ipod on shuffle, and “Frank O’Hara Hit” by Chelsea Light Moving came on. I’d totally forgotten about this record and this song, even though it isn’t that old. It’s no secret that Thurston Moore, the man behind Chelsea Light Moving and formerly of Sonic Youth, is a fan of New York School writing and a big supporter of poetry (and a pretty stellar writer himself). But, what struck me about the song is how much of a lasting influence O’Hara has.
Here’s an excerpt of a review of the song:
Kicking off with a minute-long intro of chiming guitar harmonics played over a playful backing of a wandering bass line and loose drum beats, the tune then launches into a relentless noise groove, meandering almost aimlessly between verses of abstract lyrical thought and expanses of dual guitar skronking. In other words, ’Frank O’Hara Hit’ will never be a hit.
There’s something about this description of the song that reminds me of O’Hara’s poetry–but in a good way. Just as the song “meanders almost aimlessly,” a central part of what appeals to me about O’Hara is the way his verse seems to wander all over the city, but also manages to come together in a meaningful way.
But, that’s kind of abstract. Let’s look at these few lines from one of my most favorite O’Hara poems:
Destroy yourself, if you don’t know!
It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so. I admire you, beloved, for the trap you’ve set. It’s like a final chapter no one reads because the plot is over.
How do we move from destruction to beauty to admiration to a trap to the end of a story? And, how does this happen at the center of a prose poem? And, why do I love it? I get stuck on the line “It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so.” Why is this so striking? Is it easy to be beautiful? I never thought so. But, maybe people who are externally beautiful don’t even know how beautiful they are? But, then, how could it also be “difficult to appear so”?
I also wonder if this “meandering” between “abstract lyric thought” and “expanse” is perhaps a key to New York School poetry?
I want to end this post with a stanza from a somewhat recent Amiri Baraka poem:
“Why make believe poetry
Is about arrogant pretense
& social denial. Why
Try to trick us you can sing?”
Its title is “The Terrorism of Abstraction.”
