Royce and Erin Lesson Plan

SHORT VERSION:

Frank O’Hara, 31 October 2017 Erin and Royce

Goals:

1. Have the class begin to reconcile the “avant-garde” with “kitsch”–challenge Greenberg’s notion that they’re opposites
2. Develop and defend perspectives on the polarizing way that O’Hara juggles tools like humor, popular culture references/taboos, and intimacy.
3. Laugh! Have fun with O’Hara, even while taking him seriously–Royce and Erin think he wants us to.

Lesson Plan:

1. (RC) Audio of “Poem (Lana Turner has collapsed)”
   1. What are we supposed to do with this poetry? Why is the audience laughing? Do you think O’Hara is funny?
2. (EP) Intro to “I do this, I do that” poems: explain what O’Hara meant by that term
3. (RC) Write an “I do this, I do that” poem: take 5 minutes to have everyone in the class write their own poem mimicking O’Hara’s style
   1. Have anyone who wants to read theirs aloud
   2. Close Reading Topic 1: Do you like O’Hara? Is his mind a fun place to be?
4. (EP) Mini-lecture on O’Hara’s biography/ some context on the NY School (since we have not come across either yet as a class) Limit to five minutes max
   1. Where we’ve been, where we’re going: Mina Loy’s New York vs. Frank O’Hara’s; a Loy or Stein poem vs. an O’Hara one; Pablo Picasso vs. Jackson Pollock
   2. O’Hara’s Life
   3. Context of the New York School
5. (EP) Close Readings: “You go here, you go there” introduce a point/topic/issue about O’Hara and guide close readings of poems that grapple with that issue
   1. Close Reading Topic 2: (Directed at those who responded to homework question 1) How does O’Hara experiment with meaning making? Returning to our discussion of our own poems and the form/content choices we made when we tried to mimic O’Hara, in what ways is he less straightforward than he seems at first read?
      1. 1. “Why I Am Not A Painter”
         2. “A Pleasant Thought From Whitehead”
         3. “Memorial Day 1950”
6. Degree of Agree Activities/ “You go here, you go there”:
   1. (RC) Close Reading Topic 3: (Addresses the responses to homework question 2) Is O’Hara a personal poet? In what ways is he forthcoming, and in what ways is he reticent? Does he deal with some subjects with more reticence, and is he more open about others?
      1. Show the ballroom of critical conversation (draw it on the board)
         1. Herring 1: “Someone who, throughout his literary career, was quintessentially open – immediate, chatty, visible, and candid about his sexual preferences” (416)
         2. Herring 2: “ disdain for . . .  personal exposure” (416)
         3. Herring 3: “paradox,” “striv[ing] to achieve impersonal impersonal intimacy by using the language of the mass public sphere” (423), “poet [who] is simultaneously intimate and depersonalized” (424).
      2. Reference poems
         1. “Personism”
         2. “A Step Away From Them”
         3. “The Day Lady Died”
         4. “Personal Poem”
         5. “A Pleasant Thought From Whitehead”
         6. “Steps”
         7. “Meditations in an Emergency”
   2. (RC) Close Reading Topic 3: Does O’Hara ever trouble you?
      1. “A Step Away From Them,” “The Day Lady Died,” “Personal Poem” (for its tokenism of LeRoi Jones)
   3. (EP) Close Reading Topic 4: Is he serious? Is he joking? Is he both?
      1. “Personism”
      2. “Why I Am Not a Painter”
      3. “Memorial Day 1950”
      4. “Poem (Lana Turner has collapsed!)”
      5. “A Pleasant Thought From Whitehead”
      6. “Poem (Instant coffee with slightly sour cream)”
   4. (EP) & (RC) Debate: Is O’Hara avant-garde, kitsch, or does he straddle the line?

LONG VERSION:

Frank O’Hara, 31 October 2017 Erin and Royce

Goals:

1. Have the class begin to reconcile the “avant-garde” with “kitsch”–challenge Greenberg’s notion that they’re opposites
2. Have the class develop and defend perspectives on the polarizing way that O’Hara juggles tools like humor, popular culture references/taboos, and intimacy
3. Laugh! Have fun with O’Hara, while taking him seriously at the same time

Lesson Plan:

1. (RC) Audio of “Poem (Lana Turner has collapsed)” (five minutes)
   1. What are we supposed to do with this poetry? Why is the audience laughing? Do you think O’Hara is funny?
2. (EP) Intro to “I do this, I do that” poems: explain what O’Hara means by that term (2 minutes)
3. (RC) Write an “I do this, I do that” poem: take (5 minutes) to have everyone in the class write their own poem mimicking O’Hara’s style
   1. Have anyone who wants to read theirs aloud
   2. Compare your poem to one of O’Hara’s: what did you “get right”? What did you “get wrong”?
   3. Close Reading Topic 1: (10 minutes) Do you like O’Hara? Is his mind a fun place to be?
4. (EP) Mini-lecture on O’Hara’s biography/ some context on the NY School (since we have not come across either yet as a class) Limit to five minutes max. Take-aways:
   1. Where we’ve been, where we’re going: Mina Loy’s New York vs. Frank O’Hara’s; a Loy or Stein poem vs. an O’Hara one; Pablo Picasso vs. Jackson Pollock
   2. The importance of O’Hara’s life (his career, his personal life, his friendships) to his poetry (without heading toward biographical determinism)
   3. The context of the “movement” he and his contemporaries were in (even though the NY School of poets was more of a misnomer than a name that demarcated anything)
   4. The importance of visual art to his poetry (Perloff’s argument, his career, his relationships to the NY School of painters)
5. (EP) Close Reading (10 minutes): introduce a point/topic/issue about O’Hara and guide close readings of poems that grapple with that issue
   1. Close Reading Topic 2: (Directed at those who responded to homework question 1) How does O’Hara experiment with meaning making? Returning to our discussion of our own poems and the form/content choices we made when we tried to mimic O’Hara, in what ways is he less straightforward than he seems at first read?
      1. “Why I Am Not a Painter” –lead a discussion of this poem: have someone read it aloud
         1. Show the slide with Hartigan’s/Goldberg’s paintings–link O’Hara to painters a la Perloff
         2. Is this poem funny? Why?
         3. Can we parse what sort of “meaning” O’Hara is trying to create?
      2. “A Pleasant Thought from Whitehead”
         1. Who are all the characters in this poem? Who’s the pelican?
      3. “Memorial Day 1950”
         1. What’s the difference between “naming” and “making”? What does O’Hara think the difference is? See the last stanza.
6. Degree of Agree Activities/ “You go here, you go there” (25 minutes):
   1. (RC) Close Reading Topic 2: (Addresses the responses to homework question 2) Is O’Hara a personal poet? In what ways is he forthcoming, and in what ways is he reticent? Does he deal with some subjects with more reticence, and is he more open about others?
      1. Show the ballroom of critical conversation (draw it on the board)
         1. Herring 1: “Someone who, throughout his literary career, was quintessentially open – immediate, chatty, visible, and candid about his sexual preferences” (416)
         2. Herring 2: “ disdain for . . .  personal exposure” (416)
         3. Herring 3: “paradox,” “striv[ing] to achieve impersonal impersonal intimacy by using the language of the mass public sphere” (423), “poet [who] is simultaneously intimate and depersonalized” (424).
      2. “Personism”
         1. “It does not have to do with personality or intimacy, far from it! But to give you a vague idea, one of its minimal aspects is to address itself to one person (other than the poet himself), thus evoking overtones of love without destroying love’s life-giving vulgarity… . … The poem is at last between two persons instead of two pages.”
         2. Is O’Hara’s project to personalize, or depersonalize poetry?
      3. “A Step Away From Them”
         1. Reticent, but to whom does he write this elegy? Would he be so reserved if he were truly writing to his friends?
         2. Does this poem, or any others, ask for a personal reading even though the poet has divulged everything? Are we ever encouraged to read our own lives into the poetry? “A Step Away From Them” is particularly personally important to Erin; O’Hara tells his own story but makes it general enough for her to fit herself in.
      4. “The Day Lady Died”
         1. O’Hara gives you the details you need to figure out exactly what day it is, so that he does not have to directly name who has died. In doing so, he also gives you the itinerary of his day. Do you feel as though you have access to his mind and emotions?
      5. “Personal Poem”
         1. Have someone read this aloud with attention to the last four lines: personal to the poet.
         2. Have someone read this aloud with attention to the manifesto within: personal to O’Hara and his friends.
      6. “A Pleasant Thought From Whitehead”
         1. Does this poem hail you? Do you feel active in it?
         2. Does “Memorial Day 1950” hail you?
      7. “Steps”
         1. Who is the “you” in the last line?
         2. Is the reader invited into this portrait of a city in the same way that the reader is invited into “Whitehead”?
      8. “Meditations in an Emergency”
         1. Is this a vulnerable poem? Do you feel as though the poet is laying himself bare to you?
   2. (RC) Close Reading Topic 3: Does O’Hara ever trouble you?
      1. “A Step Away From Them,” “The Day Lady Died,” “Personal Poem” (for its tokenism of LeRoi Jones)
   3. (EP) Close Reading Topic 4: Is he serious? Is he joking? Is he both?
      1. “Personism”
         1. “If you’re going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. There’s nothing metaphysical about it. Unless, of course, you flatter yourself into thinking that what you’re experiencing is ‘yearning.’”
         2. “Nobody should experience anything they don’t need to, if they don’t need poetry, bully for them.”
         3. Is O’Hara really so flippant about poetry? Is there a serious side to his joking? Does he believe in the importance of poetry without wanting to saddle everyone with the gravity of that?
      2. “Why I Am Not a Painter”
         1. Is this poem funny? Why?
      3. “Memorial Day 1950”
         1. All his joking aside, is there an intellectual, cerebral element to reading O’Hara?
         2. Some of his references are to his friends or are purely pop cultural, but others are so intellectual; what do we make of those? See also: “The Day Lady Died”
      4. “Poem (Lana Turner has collapsed!)”
         1. Is this poem funny? Why?
      5. “A Pleasant Thought From Whitehead”
         1. Who’s Whitehead? A philosopher who “insisted that all forms of human inquiry and experience are interrelated, and that the gulf between man and nature, value and fact must be bridged” (Perloff, “Transparent Selves” 182).
         2. A serious poem and a funny one at the same time?
      6. “Poem (Instant coffee with slightly sour cream)”
         1. Is this poem funny? Why?
         2. Is this poem also weird, in a way that some of the others are not?
   4. (EP) & (RC) Debate: Is O’Hara avant-garde, kitsch, or does he straddle the line?
      1. The last avant-garde? If the only avant-garde thing left to do was embrace kitsch, something that was supposed to be the exact opposite of the avant-garde, can we ever have a real avant-garde movement after the New York School? @ Haryette Mullen, Meredith and Ellie: we challenge you to prove that O’Hara and his friends were not the last avant-garde 🙂