![]() ![]() Chapter One explores O’Hara’s relationship with visual art, in both his poetry and his art criticism, and emphasises the ways in which his writing blurs the boundaries between modes of creative expression. With reference to individual poems, it traces thematic associations throughout O’Hara’s work, looking at the uses and significance of particular colours and colour-terms. ![]() The study approaches O’Hara’s oeuvre as a coherent whole, taking the view that the Collected Poems (and its subsequent companion, Poems Retrieved) is more representative of the poet’s aesthetic than a smaller selection would be. ![]() O’Hara’s colours function both abstractly and expressively in order to gesture beyond the poem to a wide range of associations and symbolic resonances. This study not only argues that his involvement with the New York art world had a profound effect on his writing, but that the particular use of colour in Abstract Expressionist works is played out in O’Hara’s poetry. Frank O’Hara is ubiquitously discussed in the same breath as the painters of the New York School, yet despite this scholarly focus on the visual arts, very little critical attention has been paid to the liberal use of colour that is evident throughout his poetry. ![]()
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