City Poet

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.