After reading Frank O’Hara’s “Personism: A Manifesto”, I found myself very intrigued by what he had to say. One of the things he wrote in this essay that particularly stuck with me was “nobody should experience anything they don’t need to, if they don’t need poetry bully for them”. I appreciated this line due to the fact that he declares with it his desire to be different, to stand alone in a sea of writers who have a tendency to want to mash their work down the general population’s throats. He is very clearly a man that accepts the fact that his work cannot and will not reach out to everyone, and actually in a sense embraces that fact.
O’Hara’s claim that too many poets behave not unlike a “middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat” is not one that is unfounded, and even has extended to other medians of art since he wrote this piece. The modern-day commercialized mess some would call the music industry is a major proponent of such activity, and has become a disgrace to itself in recent years. There has not been a musician that has traveled the true road to fame in too long, relying sometimes exclusively upon the support of money-hungry agent record companies to walk that road for them. The intimate relationship between musician and listener is not a far cry from O’Hara’s comparison to the relationship he wished to see between himself and his readers, an idea that is core to his “personism” movement.
While I see the truth in much of what Frank O’Hara had to say in his manifesto, one thing I did not understand the truth behind was his opinion on logic. I personally find logic to be an idea that is superior to nearly all others, but O’Hara demonstrated his disagreement to this, stating “pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you”. I find such an opinion to be absolutely absurd, as logic is really what holds together much of what we are and influences much of what we do.
Frank O’Hara is someone who is a more emotional person, for being attuned to one’s own emotions is necessary in order to create vivid and impactful poetry. Emotion should not be used as a substitute for logic as O’Hara seemingly advocates, but the two should instead coexist side by side. This may be a careful and delicate balance to achieve, yet if it is achieved, I believe that one will lead a much more knowledgeable and fulfilling life, one that cannot be attained through a specialization in only one of the two halves.
