ADA CALHOUN'S ALSO A POET: FRANK O'HARA, MY FATHER, AND ME

 
It took me only a few days to read this memoir/biography/critique, its prose is so inviting. But also because I was a friend of the author's father (the recently deceased poet/art critic Peter Schjeldahl) and Frank O'Hara's life and poetry had a big impact on my life and poetry. And though I never met O'Hara, I know almost everyone else mentioned in this book, some of whom I consider dear friends, and a couple of whom were lovers. [I'm briefly mentioned in the book as well, and a poetry anthology I edited in the 1970s—None Of The Above—is listed in the bibliography.]

When me and my poetry started getting some attention in the early 1970s, several of O'Hara's friends, starting with John Ashbery, said I reminded them of "Frank," and after I moved back to NYC in 1975 O'Hara's sister Maureen asked me to write a biography of her brother, because she felt I got him and his work the way she wanted someone to. Like her brother I was an Irish-American Catholic (at least raised), military veteran, poet/critic (at the time I was a book reviewer for The Washington Post and Village Voice), lover of men (as well as women), pianist (like Frank I started as a boy playing and performing classical music), and more.

But being a single parent to a five-year-old and busy with my own writing projects, I turned her offer down, We remained friends with her often explaining her reluctance to give others the rights to her brother's writing, which is part of what this book is about. I found her protective of Frank's work and legacy but not totally unreasonably (e.g. she agreed to allow Frank's poems to be used in a stage play made up of poems by poets in downtown Manhattan in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s called The Rhythm Of Torn Stars, which included a poem of mine).

In my experience each of us has a personal perspective when it comes to reality, especially the past. Part of the pleasure of encountering others' takes on shared history is being invited in to their perspective. I agree with many of Calhoun's assessments of some people and events, but some not. Her struggle  to understand and articulate her experiences with her father including his unfinished commissioned, and then blocked, biography of O'Hara is a unique reading experience. I obviously found it hard  to put down.