“Why I Am Not a Painter” by Frank O’Hara exhibits O’Hara’s reluctance to generate a feeling of intimacy within his poetry. This demonstrated within the title of the poem itself, which reads as a stand-offish and deffensive reaction… Read More
I don’t know whether or not Blagues make the poetry avant garde in and of themselves but I think they are certainly characteristic of the avant-garde. I also found that Meditations in an Emergency, which was a very… Read More
3. Is O’Hara kitsch? This is a hard question to answer since the line between the two is so thin — and our scholarly expert on the subject (Greenberg) didn’t have me altogether convinced of his argument. I… Read More
Prompt 2: Close read a poem/poems: Is O’Hara a personal poet? Does he create intimacy with the reader? Respond to the self who writes the poems. From my limited experience with Frank O’Hara’s work, his poetry strikes me… Read More
Is O’Hara a personal poet? Does he create intimacy with the reader? Respond to the self who writes the poems. I think he creates intimacy because it feels like I’m reading his thoughts. He does not sound formal,… Read More
Questions: What is the connection between the abstract, moving body of a female dancer and machinery? In a “sensual” painting with colliding “male and female elements,” what is male and what is female? Does this refer to the… Read More
In her work “Some Memories of Pre-Dada: Picabia and Duchamp” Gabrielle Buffet reflects upon her initial foray into abstract painting with Picabia. “It was a strange period of gestation and adaptation,” she writes, “new works brought nothing… Read More
Thesis: I think Buffet-Picabia’s overarching thesis really begins with her very first sentence, though it is not necessarily fully articulated in that sentence. I believe the central argument of this essay is that there was, to use Buffet-Picabia’s… Read More
Thesis: I. The avant-garde responds to the culture of the time by endeavoring to create the “nonperceptible” and breaking perceptions of structure, reason, and normalcy. Question 1: What would it mean to be a pioneer of the dada?… Read More
My interpretation of thesis from Buffet reading: I think the thesis can be found both on page 257 (Better than by…even of later growths). To me, the thesis aims to communicate that despite Picaba and Duchamp’s differing lifestyles… Read More
Questions about the Francis Picabia piece: Picabia’s view of machines as “part of human life–perhaps the very soul” (60) and his use of them without regard to their intended uses, or to any uses (65), sounds like the l’art… Read More
In Buffet-Picabia’s text, the word she chooses to describe her confusion about abstract painting as a “confession.” Why do you think she needed to “confess” that these abstract works left her in “a state of perplexity”? What do… Read More
