Volume 40, Number 20 · December 2, 1993
The Mayakovsky of MacDougal Street
By Geoffrey O'Brien
City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara
by Brad Gooch
Knopf, 532 pp., $30.00
Side by side with an extract from Leaves of Grass, a line of Frank O'Hara's adorns the railing along the esplanade of New York's Battery Park City: 'One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life.' Actually, the line (from 'Meditations in an Emergency') is misquoted: the italics have been dropped, with their suggestion of live speech caught in passing.
Review, 3833 words
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