Book Summary

The definitive biography of Frank O�Hara, one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century, the magnetic literary figure at the center of New York�s cultural life during the 1950s and 1960s.

City Poet captures the excitement and promise of mid-twentieth-century New York in the years when it became the epicenter of the art world, and illuminates the poet and artist at its heart. Brad Gooch traces Frank O�Hara�s life from his parochial Catholic childhood to World War II, through his years at Harvard and New York. He brilliantly portrays O�Hara in in his element, surrounded by a circle of writers and artists who would transform America�s cultural landscape: Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Helen Frankenthaler, Jackson Pollock, Gregory Corso, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, LeRoi Jones, and John Ashbery.

Gooch brings into focus the artistry and influence of a life �of guts and wit and style and passion� (Luc Sante) that was tragically abbreviated in 1966 when O�Hara, just forty and at the height of his creativity, was hit and killed by a jeep on the beach at Fire Island�a death that marked the end of an exceptional career and a remarkable era.

City Poet is illustrated with 55 black and white photographs.

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