Poets & Writers Theater

“I want to be / at least as alive as the vulgar. And if / some aficionado of my mess says ‘That’s not like Frank!,’ all to the good!” reads Jenny Xie from Frank O’Hara’s poem “My Heart” in this episode of Ours Poetica, a series produced by the Poetry Foundation in collaboration with Complexly.

"I’m so damned literary / and at the same time the waters rushing past remind me of / nothing..." Hilary Kaplan reads Frank O'Hara's "Poem en Forme de Saw" from Lunch Poems, first published in 1964 by City Lights Publishers. Angélica Freitas's debut collection, Rilke Shake (Phoneme Media, 2015), translated from the Portuguese by Kaplan, won the 2016 Best Translated Book Award in poetry.

Poet Ron Silliman recently drew attention to this footage of Frank O’Hara from the 1966 TV series USA: Poetry. O’Hara died a few weeks after the filming was completed.

In this endearing short film by student Juliet San Nicolas, five lines of poetry by Frank O'Hara are intermingled with the sweeet sound of a typewriter and the song "Annie Green Quit Speaking to Me" by Jeff Pianki.

Frank O'Hara reads his poem "Lana Turner Has Collapsed" to Nirvana's cover of "Love Buzz" in this audio mix created by Len Sousa.