This week’s Tuesday Poem is verse from a member of the New York School of poetry – the observational Frank O’Hara. I love the casual, colloquial style of O’Hara’s poetry, and this poem is distinctly constructed with this warmth and vibrancy of colloquial tone. Poetry should be easy and relatable and lively, and O’Hara’s ‘Having a Coke with You’ is all of these things. I particularly relish the repetition embedded in the first stanza: ‘partly because…’, where he tries to express why having a coke with you is ‘more fun’ and shows us the proliferation of reasons for this – the myriad of forces and considerations that seem so human. To me, Frank is saying that it is not what you do in life, but who you do it with. Simple things – having a coke with you.
Having a Coke with You
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irun, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
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
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it
Here is a clip of Frank reading the poem in his flat in New York in 1966. It’s a bit crackly, but I love it.
Take some time to head over to the Tuesday Poem hub this week and spend your morning tea break indulging in some poetry. At the hub, there is ‘For John Pule’ from the talented Karlo Mila, chosen by Tuesday poet and this week’s editor, Leah.
October 2, 2012 at 9:15 am
Oh wow Elizabeth, this is just wonderful. I love how engaging his poems are…when you read them, it could be him speaking those words to you, for the very first time. Thanks for sharing this!
October 3, 2012 at 9:18 pm
Yes, that’s what I love, too, Leah – it feels as though he is talking directly to you. It’s so hard to get that level of personal connection in poetry, without sounding trite, isn’t it? But O’Hara seems to do this so easily! Sigh.
October 2, 2012 at 8:19 pm
Very cool–I love the conversational tone which is almost, but not quite–because of the marvelous rhythm–prose poetry…
October 3, 2012 at 9:21 pm
Yes, I really admire the rhythm to O’Hara’s poetry, Helen. It really becomes pronounced when you hear him speak, doesn’t it?
October 3, 2012 at 1:33 pm
It is such a warm poem…so upfront and personal. And imagine a tree breathing through its spectacles…and the contentment of it …and the idea of choosing the wrong person to stand beside something in a painting …:-)
ntipaipainting
October 3, 2012 at 9:24 pm
Hi, Helen – I agree, the personable, honest and a little quirky really shines in ‘Having a coke with you’. That line – choosing the wrong person to stand beside something in a painting keeps coming back to me. There feels like there’s something more – about composition and direct discussion with the reader – to it. So lovely to have you pop by this week
October 4, 2012 at 6:29 pm
It IS like a conversation, isn’t it? It’s casual and yet so well constructed, and so personal, and so observant of the little details which are what really matter in something so intimate as this. Really great! So glad to hear his reading of it too… such a bonus!