Frank O'Hara, and childhood in his poetry

Childhood in Frank O'Hara's poetry

'There I could never be a boy,

though I rode like a god when the horse reared.

At a cry from mother, I fell to my knees!'

- Frank O'Hara, ‘Poem (There I could never be a boy)’

Frank O'Hara is perhaps best imagined as the cosmopolitan; the critic, the party-goer, the curator. He was an enthusiastic student of the arts. His deep passion for media and artistic portrayal is something that can be found deeply rooted in his poetry, and there’s no denying his adoration of the city of New York that saturates his work. However, Frank was not born into that lifestyle: He grew up in the small town of Grafton, Massachusetts, to parents Russell and Katherine O'Hara; populated by around 6000 people, Grafton was far-removed from the glamour of the big city. He was the oldest sibling, out of his brother John (or Phil) and his sister Maureen, and he attended St Paul’s Catholic grade school from 1932-1940. His family owned and managed a farm, and were well-respected in the community. Despite a frosty relationship with his family at the time of his death, he was often considered his mother’s child during his time before joining the navy. Family life for young Frank O'Hara (aka., Francis) was good; for example, when writing home during one point of his deployment, he wrote (without any sense of sarcasm), ‘Blondie will always be a symbol of our family life to me’[i] (alluding to the film). So where does this rural background come in to Frank O’Hara’s poetry? Does it possess any kind of levity? What of his sexual identity, or his literary genius? Where does this upbringing show in the city-poet's work?

As it turns out, he regularly alluded to his childhood throughout various examples of his poetry, in different manners and with different attitudes. Perhaps the most obvious example of his allusion to his childhood can be found in his poem, 'Ode to Michael Goldberg ('s Birth and Other Births)'. In this candid piece, he extracts the segments of the child, Francis O'Hara, from the perspective of the adult poet, Frank - This has the effect of bringing us into his own perspective as both adult and adolescent, whilst showing us what aspects of his childhood later cultivated into adulthood. Throughout the poem, his wandering, musing voice casually recalls senses and memories to expose to us things like his awakening sexuality; his referral to, '... the twitching odor of hay...' being a possible reference to his first sexual experience with a stable boy[ii]. Interestingly, whilst he generally removed himself from the responsibilities surrounding the farm and it's management, he is drawn to that first experience and the masculinity of that lifestyle around him. Even if this is not true, it is the working-class, masculine world which he chooses to eroticise - for example, referring to the remarks made by the Whitney Brothers - as opposed to the more educated lifestyle he had learnt from his aunts (the life of the arts, and literature). In other poems, too, he specifically refers to this idea of sexual awakening; in 'Ave Maria', he suggests that mothers that send children to the cinema might find their children thanking them, '... for their first sexual experience/ which only cost you a quarter/ and didn't upset the peaceful home...' Here, there's also the possibility that O'Hara was quite aware of his homosexuality at a younger age; more, that he had the maturity to recognise his own vulnerability being gay, and the difficulties he would face because of this. There is the chance that, like in so much of his poetry, he is being semi-autobiographical.

In another poem,‘Poem (There I could never be a boy)’, Frank approaches the subject of his childhood in a different manner than in 'Ode to Michael Goldberg'; with the mentality of the poet. From the very first line, we get the impression that he felt that his own personality - his own passion and drive - prevented him from enjoying a normal childhood. Similarly, he refers to his mother in this poem, and the conflict she elicited from him with regards to his creativity: He discusses his uncontainable creative drive through an extended metaphor that flows throughout the piece, 'though I bloomed on the back of a frightened black mare...', later writing, 'All these things are tragic/ when a mother watches!/... I knew her, but I could not be a boy...'. However, here it is difficult to imagine that he's doing anything other than looking back in hindsight through tinted shades. There are plenty of examples of Francis the child being decidedly boyish, from his childhood love of music (which he shared with his father AND mother) to his references of childish antics in 'Ode to Michael Goldberg', '... in bushes playing tag, being called in, walk-/ing up onto the porch crying bitterly because it wasn't a/ veranda'. He even emphasises his youth by referring to a time before he was aware of sexuality as a part of himself, when, 'I wasn't proud of my penis yet, how did I know how to act?' Here, he actually refers to a specific LACK of awareness of the poet in him; instead, he is ONLY the boy.

Lastly, in his poetry, he regularly refers to his influences from literature, art and film - even beyond his childhood. However, specifically in pieces such as 'Autobiographia Literaria', we gain some insight into how important these influences were. Again, he refers to a solitary childhood - something which we have to consider with a pinch of incredulity (Gooch refers to a relevant collection of friends that O'Hara spent time with throughout his childhood [iii]) - however, he concludes the poem with, 'And here I am, the/ centre of all beauty!/ writing these poems!/ Imagine!'. This poem was written whilst he was still studying at Harvard in 1949-50, and is the first piece that dealt with his childhood. This is relevant because of how he chose to emphasise his desire to write and be a part of the educated, creative community he was so influenced by. He was an exceptionally bright child: His aunt Margaret helped him to develop a love of reading into an insatiable desire to learn - being a librarian, it was she who plied him with the works of Dickens, Washington Irving, and many others [iv]. In 'Ave Maria', his appreciation of films is immediately obvious, 'Mothers of America/ let your kids go to the movies!' Here, movies is more than just it's literal interpretation; he uses them as a conduit for experiencing life in general. This is apparent in the closing lines of the piece, where he states that the children of parents who don't allow their children to get out of the house and experience things eventually, '... grow old and blind in front of the TV set/ seeing/ movies you wouldn't let them see when they were young'. This alludes to his own childhood, where his aunt Lizzie introduced him to the world of film. He became a firm believer in the importance of film as a medium; something which he would never release.

Frank O'Hara rarely liked to talk about his childhood in later years. His friend, painter Jane Freilicher, suggested that he always exuded this feeling that he was, ‘… very much on his own.’[v] However, whilst it perhaps wasn't as clear-cut as he might imply from his New York apartment conversations with his mother over the phone, nor as he might suggest in his letter to his brother, in which he states, 'As you know I don't give a fuck for families', Frank O'Hara retained some of that relationship with his mother, albeit shrouded in distaste. He traces his own sexual identity through his time spent in the navy, and Harvard, and New York, all the way to the smell of hay; a lifeline to his youth, and it remains there. Overall, Frank O'Hara may have chosen to distance himself from his childhood - However, whilst he had drifted away from his rural beginnings and family ties by the 1960s, Frank O'Hara never chose to completely shake his childhood experience. 

---

[i] Brad Gooch, City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O’Hara (New York: Alfred A. Knopf Inc., 1993) p. 13
[ii] Brad Gooch, p. 51
[iii] Brad Gooch, p. 43 - 46
[iv] Brad Gooch, p. 33
[v] Brad Gooch, p. 12

Notes - Hey guys, I hope that you liked this piece - sorry it's out at the skin of my teeth on Sunday night, but here it is regardless! Enjoy!

Poems: 
Ode to Michael Goldberg ('s Birth and Other Births) - search contents
Ave Maria
Poem (There I Could Never be a Boy) - search contents
Autobiographia Literaria