Frank Other Frank

Explicit content warning

11/07/22 • 28 min

Breaking Form: a Poetry and Culture Podcast

Frankly, our dears, all we want is boundless love for Frank O'Hara. We also discuss radical poetic embodiment, and ponder whether or not Dickinson's "Wild Nights" (269) is a fisting poem.

Please consider supporting the poets we mention in today's show! If you need a good indie bookstore, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a DC-area Black-owned bookshop.
Frank O’Hara was born Francis Russell O'Hara in Baltimore, MD, but grew up near Worcester, MA. As a kid, he studied music in hopes of being a concert pianist. After a stint in the navy (shocking!) he went to Harvard, where Edward Gorey was his roommate. Imagine what those bunk sessions were like.
Watch Jenny Xie read “My Heart” here (~1.5 min).
Read O’Hara’s “Ave Maria” here, and “you will have made the little tykes/ so happy....”
There's a film called "Wild Nights with Emily" (watch a 10 minute clip here), starring Molly Shannon as Emily Dickinson. The film's description says it is informed by Dickinson's private letters and is a "timely critique of how women's history is rewritten."
Watch Ruth Stone read her poem "Where I Came From" here (~2 min).
For more about Beverly Pepper's work, watch this brief (2 min) video. Pepper died in 2020.
We reference an Instagram video post that Jorie Graham made about Pepper (her mother) making art. The post is captioned thusly: "My mother beginning to draw again with a partly mended broken arm. She holds one arm with the other for a moment, as if her wounded arm is a tool. Certainly she knew enough to know her wound was always her tool. She is so comfortable because Greg Whitmore is behind the camera, but, after a point, she is gone from us—all of us—I can see it as it happens—because she totally enters the work. It used to scare me as a child when she disappeared from this realm, and went into that one. It was strange to realize that there WAS an other realm into which one could go. Into which I could lose her. Of course, years later, I realized it was one of the greatest gifts she gave me. When she would leave me “alone” in this world knowing I had to find the other world in this one & find my way to it. Which is one’s fate. And one’s journey." You can see the post here.
The video in the post was made in 2014 and can also be watched online here.

Frankly, our dears, all we want is boundless love for Frank O'Hara. We also discuss radical poetic embodiment, and ponder whether or not Dickinson's "Wild Nights" (269) is a fisting poem.

Previous Episode

Game Day w/ David Trinidad and Denise Duhamel

Just the tip-off! You’ll laugh, you’ll gasp, you’ll win $50 in breakcoin (more crypto than currency). Polish up your high-heel cleats and get out your pompoms!

Please consider supporting the poets we mention in today's show! If you need a good indie bookstore, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a DC-area Black-owned bookshop.

Writing for the Ploughshares blog, Robert Anthony Siegel calls Sei Shōnagon's The Pillow Book “a progenitor of the fragmentary, nonlinear, hybrid-genre work....” Read the whole, short essay here.

You can watch Elaine Equi read four poems from Big Other here (~4.5 mins). And read more about this fabulous poet’s bio here.

Hear Plath read “November Graveyard” here (~1 min)

Hear Plath read “Poppies in October” here (~1 min)

Plath reads the Rabbit Catcher here (~1.5 min)

Plath reads “The Applicant” here (~2 min)

Watch a beautifully-read, dramatic rendering of “Crossing the Water” here (~1 min)

Audio of Plath reading Lady Lazarus can be heard here (~3 min)

Watch Clara Sismondo perform “Blackberrying” (National Poetry in Voice) here (~3 min)

Hear “Tulips” in Plath’s voice here (~4.5 min)

Watch this arresting short film of “Death & Co” produced by Troublemakers TV here (~1.5 min)

You can read “The Couriers” here.

Read “The Colossus” here.

Hear Plath read “Daddy” here (~4 min)

Read “Electra on Azalea Path” here

Read “The Babysitters” here

Read “The Beekeeper’s Daughter” here

Read “Winter Trees” here

You can read this fascinating essay about acquiring Plath’s table by David Trinidad here.
Listen to David talk with scholar Heather Clark, author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, about the light and dark sequences in Plath’s life.

Watch Dorianne Laux read a very recent poem “What's Broken” here (~2 min)

You can attend virtually this fabulous Terrance Hayes reading at the University of Chicago (~1 hour)

Next Episode

Pet Project

Hot goss about Victorian poet(s) Michael Field precedes a conversation about the deep loss of animals, and the intimacy, friendship, and love we share with them.
Please consider supporting the poets we mention in today's show! If you need a good indie bookstore, we recommend Loyalty Bookstores, a DC-area Black-owned bookshop.
We reference a scene from the show Yellowstone where Beth tells her son Carter
the universal truths of getting money. You can watch that clip here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=118&v=a68StSECIGI&feature=emb_logo
Read more criticism and biography about Michael Field here.
Read more poems by Michael Field here.
Links to poems we read during this episode include:
Jane Kenyon's "Biscuit"
Paisley Rekdal's "Once"
Bruce Weigl's "May"
We'll add to this list of other poems about the love we give to and receive from animals here. Suggest some on our social media.
Carl Phillips: "Something to Believe In"
Marie Howe: "Buddy"
Mark Doty: "Golden Retrievals"
Victoria Redel: "The Pact"
Mary Oliver: "Little Dog's Rhapsody in the Night" (see Oliver read it here).
Kevin Young: "Bereavement"
Nomi Stone: "Waiting for Happiness"
Robert Duncan: "A Little Language"
Pattiann Rogers, "Finding the Cat in a Spring Field at Midnight"
William Matthews, "Loyal"
Christopher Smart, "from Jubilate Agno (for I will consider my cat Joffrey...)"
The Humane Society suggests a few coping strategies for dealing with the loss of a loved pet:

Acknowledge your grief and give yourself permission to express it.
Don't hesitate to reach out to others who can lend a sympathetic ear. Do a little research online and you'll find hundreds of resources and support groups that may be helpful to you.
Write about your feelings, either in a journal or a poem, essay, or short story.
Call your veterinarian or local humane society to see whether they offer a pet-loss support group or hotline, or can refer you to one.
Prepare a memorial for your pet.