Today I've been at an academic conference at Glasgow University organised by my friends Derek and Erik (and others). Entitled New Clear Forms: American Poetry and Cold War Culture the figure that floated through all of the papers was Frank O'Hara.
I'd heard the name before, and had vaguely placed the New York School of which he a part (along with John Ashberry, James Schuyler and loads of others) temporally. So when connections were made with the abstract expressionists a few remembrances came back to me. Having said that, I'd never really heard any of the poetry that came out of this school. Here's O'Hara reading "Having a coke with you":
I think it's lovely, and we got a chance to see more of this footage at a screening of work by Colin Still, from Optic Nerve Productions, who has made many films, some for Channel 4, on various New York School and Beat poets.
Still showed us a nearly-finished film on Michael McClure, which me, Erik and Derek spent laughing hysterically through, but trying not to show it. He's a very solemn man, is McClure, and mixing solemnity with new age stuff about the doors of perception and a "ball of gas in my stomach" makes for some very funny moments: it is impossible to intone seriously the words "pink bandaid" for instance, and raising a dolphin skull from below a table with the words "and then I found this skull" before talking about "seeing in it all the way back to the first mammals" and "all life" is quite difficult to do without raising a snigger.
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Me
- Mark
- I am writing a PhD at the University of Glasgow entitled "The Poetics of Time in Contemporary Literature". My writing has been published in Type Review, Dancehall, Puffin Review and TheState. I review books for Gutter and The List. I am also an editor and reviewer at the Glasgow Review of Books.
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