When I saw the videos on the writing and thought process of Frank O Hara in class, I found him to be an incredibly remarkable individual, short of being eccentric though, but nevertheless interesting. In my mind, I have always pictured poets to be sad, lonely, dry and complex individuals, who might have probably endured a traumatic episode or were constantly part of a conflict in life which has shaped their views and channeled their emotions towards writing and poetry. Okay, it maybe sounds too pitiful and a little exaggerated, and I shouldn’t be too harsh on poets. In short, I thought that poets were somewhat sad or kind of boring people.
But I was proven terribly wrong by those videos that I watched. It was fascinating to see that a poet like Frank O Hara was able to pour his mind and heart out casually while in a conversation with someone on the phone and also sitting beside another person, too. I think that could also be attributed to the style of poetry he invented and adopted for himself – Personism. In ” Personism – A Manifesto”, Frank O Hara refutes misconceptions by other people and poets of his poems, and explains his free and uninhibited style of poetry, unlike the structured and rule-bound poetry written at that time, and his philosophy and ideology on poetry.
Coming back to my point on the link between personism and his writing process, I think that adopting a liberated way of poetry that personalizes as opposed to abstracting, allows the poet, in this case, Frank O Hara to express his ideas freely and fluently without any difficulty because of the personal tone in it, and hence, writing poetry would become a task as natural and simple as a conversation on the phone. It probably eliminates the anxiety of following the rules of prose and structure and abstractionism, with great care not to even slightly deviate from these rigid conventions.
Also, from the viewpoint of not much of a poetry lover, I feel that this style greatly resonates with the reader as compared to the traditional style of poetry, and keeps up with the constant changes and advances in society. Another think that I really like about personism is that it does not have to black or white. It represents the shades of grey; there is no exact interpretation of a purpose or sense of the ideas in the poem, but they are all still ideas, which can be interpreted in many ways.