New York Poets: an anthology

John Ashbery was born in Rochester, New York, in 1927. His books of poetry include Breezeway; Quick Question; Planisphere; Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems, which was awarded the 2008 International Griffin Poetry Prize; A Worldly Country; Where Shall I Wander; and Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, which received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the National Book Award. The winner of many prizes and awards both nationally and internationally, in 2011 he received the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation, and in 2012 he received a National Humanities Medal, presented by President Obama at the White House. He lived in New York until his death, aged ninety, in 2017.Kenneth Koch is grouped with John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara and James Schuyler, a grouping which tends to underplay the real differences between each poet's projects; their collaborations were inventive because of their differences, not their similarities, and what marks all four is the ability to work at tangents without ever quite abandoning the circumference. Koch started writing when he was five, under the influence of Shelley, whom he outgrew in his teens, taking doses of Byron and eventually of Eliot. As a soldier in the Philippines, he kept himself sane by playing in language, making lines to make life's unbearables absurd. He studied at Harvard with Delmore Schwartz, and Ashbery and O'Hara were classmates. His prose memoirs, plays and poems have an abundance and a formal variety unparalleled in American writing. His Selected Poems and One Train are published in the United Kingdom by Carcanet. Frank O’Hara was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1926, and grew up in Grafton, Massachusetts. He served in the US navy (1944-46) in the South Pacific, and attended the universities of Harvard and Michigan. In 1951 O’Hara settled in Manhattan, and soon became a central figure in a number of the city’s artistic circles. For most of the fifteen years that he lived in New York he worked at the Museum of Modern Art, graduating from the front desk to become Associate Curator. He was a passionate advocate of Abstract Expressionist painters such as Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Franz Kline. O’Hara wrote an enormous quantity of poetry, little of which was published during his lifetime, but which was much admired by friends such as John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, V.R. 'Bunny' Lang, James Schuyler, Fairfield Porter and Larry Rivers. He died on 25 July 1966, from injuries sustained in a beach-buggy accident on Fire Island. He is buried at Green River Cemetery, East Hampton, Long Island. His Collected Poems (edited by Donald Allen) was published in 1971, and won the National Book Award for Poetry. James Schuyler was born in Chicago on 9 November 1923. He attended Bethany College of West Virginia from 1941 to 1943. In the late 40s he moved to New York City where he worked for NBC and befriended W. H. Auden. He later moved to Italy, where he lived in Auden's rented apartment and worked as his secretary. He attended the University of Florence between 1947 and 1948. He returned to the United States afterwards, and settled in New York City, where he lived with John Ashbery and Frank O'Hara. On 12 April 1991, he died following a stroke. Mark Ford was born in 1962. His publications include two collections of poetry, Landlocked (Chatto & Windus 1991, 1998) and Soft Sift (Faber & Faber 2001, Harcourt Brace 2003); a critical biography of the French poet, playwright and novelist Raymond Roussel (Raymond Roussel and the Republic of Dreams, Faber & Faber, 2000, Cornell University Press, 2001), a collection of essays, A Driftwood Altar (Waywiser Press, 2005), a 20,000-word interview with John Ashbery (Between the Lines, 2003), and, for Carcanet, The New York Poets, an anthology of poems by Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch and James Schuyler (2003), The New York Poets II: An Anthology (2006) and 'Why I am not a painter' and other poems, a selection of the poetry of Frank O'Hara (2003). Mark Ford is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. He teaches in the English department at University College, London.

• Table of ContentsIntroduction -Mark FordSelect BibliographyFrank O'HaraAutobiographia LiterariaPoem (At night Chinamen jump)Poem (The eager note on my door said "Call me/)Memorial Day 1950A Pleasant Thought from WhiteheadBlocksHomosexualityMeditations in an EmergencyMusicPoem (There I could never be a boy,)To the HarbormasterAt the Old PlaceMy HeartTo the Film Industry in CrisisRadioIn Memory of My FeelingsA Step Away from ThemWhy I Am Not a PainterPoem Read at Joan Mitchell'sAnxietyA True Account of Talking to the Sun at Fire IslandTo Gottfried BennThe Day Lady DiedAdieu to Norman, Bon Jour to Joan and Jean-PaulJoe's JacketYou Are Gorgeous and I'm ComingPoem (Khrushchev is coming on the right day!)Getting Up Ahead of Someone (Sun)StepsAve MariaPoem (Lana Turner has collapsed!)First DancesFantasyJohn AshberyThe Picture of Little J.A. in a Prospect of FlowersSome TreesThe Painter"They Dream Only of America"A Last WorldThese Lacustrine Citiesfrom The SkatersSoonest MendedFarm Implements and Rutabagas in a LandscapeDefinition of BlueThe One Thing That Can Save AmericaCity AfternoonSelf-Portrait in a Convex MirrorStreet MusiciansPyrographyWet CasementsDaffy Duck in HollywoodAs We KnowAt North FarmA Driftwood AltarThe History of My LifeKenneth KochFresh AirYou Were WearingVariations on a Theme by William Carlos WilliamsThe CircusFateThe Simplicity of the Unknown PastTo MarinaDays and Nights1. The Invention of Poetry2. The Stones of Time3. The Secret4. Out and In5. Days and NightsOne Train May Hide AnotherA Time ZoneJames SchuylerFebruaryMay 24th or soBuried at SpringsEmpathy and New YearAn East Window on Elizabeth StreetA Gray ThoughtTo Frank O'HaraShimmerOctoberThe BluetHymn to LifeJune 30,1974Korean MumsWystan AudenDining Out With Doug and FrankThe Payne Whitney PoemsTripWe WalkArchesLinenHeather and CalendulasBackBlizzardFebruary 13,1975SleepPastimeWhatThe SnowdropEn Route to SouthamptonFaure's Second Piano QuartetIndex of First LinesIndex of Titles

The London Review of Books:Ashbery, Koch, O'Hara and Schuyler: a quartet of sublime jokers who imagined a city into existence. Deceptively simple surfaces overlay an intellectual and emotional exuberance of staggering daring.