Comments | exceptindreams: 842: Why I Am Not a Painter

exceptindreams

842: Why I Am Not a Painter

Apr 29, 2010 16:14

"Why I Am Not a Painter ( Read more... )

Comments 6

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exceptindreams May 1 2010, 02:49:22 UTC

Go to hiatusofwinter. If you go to the profile page, you should see a button that says "Join". Click that, and I will then add you to the community. Let me know if that didn't make sense.

And I'm glad you like this journal so much.

finsaur_venusy April 30 2010, 05:14:18 UTC

I read "Why I Am Not a Painter" at thirteen years and fell in love. To this day, it remainds my favorite poem. "There should be/so much more/not of orange, of/words, of how terrible orange is/and life." I think I've read it too many times to provide proper commentary, every thought I've ever had about it is kind of a huge blur in my head, but something in it touches me (in the way that a punch in the stomach is also a punch) and seeing it on my friends-list made me nearly literally gasp in delight and entirely literally reread it, though I'm not sure for which time.

anotherreminder May 1 2010, 01:50:48 UTC

LOVE

melanie_mustard May 10 2010, 07:40:30 UTC

Ditto.

gianlao May 1 2010, 05:18:54 UTC

This is the poem that inspired me to pursue writing, or generally, something artistic. The differences in art aren't clear sometimes (and O'Hara hints at this by his brief mention of prose as poetry in this work) but this work shows us that there is some subconscious relationship between different disciplines.

Beautiful poem.

patrick_vecchio May 2 2010, 00:36:39 UTC

Here's a link to O'Hara-in typical form-reading "Poem (Lana Turner Has Collapsed)" at the University at Buffalo in 1964:

http://www.frankohara.org/fohaudio02/poemlana.html

Reading O'Hara a couple of years ago got me curious about the American abstract expressionist painters that O'Hara was such good friends with. I was grateful for that because I never "got" the action painters' work before.

O'Hara and his poetry are interesting enough in their own rights, though. "The Day Lady Died" was my gateway poem for him. Thank you for calling attention to him.