Curating the Curator: The (Self-)Construction of Frank O’Hara as Myth Carissa Ern Ai Chye Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences The University of Sydney A thesis submitted to fulfil requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2018 In memory of my late grandfather, Joseph Chin Wee Wong, who first taught me to love poetry. Kung Kung, I have kept my promise. Statement of Originality The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this material, either in full or in part for a degree at this or any other institution. Acknowledgements This thesis originated with a love for Frank O’Hara’s poetry, but it could not have been sustained without the support and sacrifice of those around me. Along the journey to its completion, I have found significant encouragement and renewed strength in the people that constantly cheer me on. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my primary supervisor, Bruce Gardiner, for the way he has stimulated and supported the evolvement of this project. His attention to detail and his immense knowledge have enhanced the rigour of my research, and his patience and kind generosity with his time have made working with him such a privilege. Under his guidance, I was constantly challenged to think deeper, articulate my thoughts more clearly and become a better researcher. It has been an honour to work with a scholar of his calibre. For her unwavering belief in me and her staunch support of all my endeavours, I am eternally grateful to my mother. She has taught me forbearance, grace under pressure and strength in difficulties. Her listening ear is always available, her love always bounteous. The time I devoted to this project would not have been possible without the sacrifice of her own time to care for my young daughter. I have been able to work without worry because of the knowledge that my child is in the best hands possible. She is my rock, and no words are adequate to express my immense gratefulness towards her. To my father I am greatly indebted, for the many sacrifices he has made to give us a better life. That I stand here at the finish line is a testament to the numerous decisions he has made to put my sister and me before his own interests. His love for our family, his faithfulness and his constant prayers for us have sustained us our whole life. The levity he brings to every situation is a source of laughter and a reminder to approach life with joyfulness. For being my ever-present sounding board and the person who instinctively understands me, I thank my beloved sister, Carina. She has punctuated my long work hours with comic relief, wise words and unfaltering support. Her determination to achieve her own dreams provided me, during many uncertain moments, with the spark of motivation I needed to complete this journey. In her I have a cherished companion and a source of inspiration. To my husband, Adrian, my love and appreciation knows no bounds. He has championed and encouraged the pursuit of my dreams since the day we met. In him I have my best friend, my source of strength and my biggest cheerleader. In the achievement of this milestone I have been bolstered time and again by his deep love for me, and have found great comfort in his calm belief that I had the capability to complete this. When I began this journey we were newly married, and at its completion we are the parents of two beautiful children. He is my partner in every sense of the word. To my daughters Alexa and Avaleigh I dedicate this thesis. Alexa’s wide-eyed, unconditional love gives me renewed purpose each day, and her sweet dream to complete a ‘pee aitch dee’ just like Mummy often propelled me forward towards the completion of this marathon race. Alexa, you can be anything you want to be. Avaleigh, who arrived in this world a few hours after I completed the final draft of this thesis, reminds me constantly that a woman has more within her than that of which she thinks herself capable. To God Be the Glory Table of Contents List of Illustrations 6 Chapter One: Reading and Writing the Myth of Frank O’Hara 8 1.1 Mythmaking as a Collective Social Act: The Embodied Icon 8 1.2 Myth as Self-Construction 37 1.3 The Sedimentation of Narrative 48 Chapter Two: ‘Call me / Yes okay I’ll call you’: Frank O’Hara and the Mythopoetics of the Telephone 70 2.1 Staying on the Line with Frank O’Hara 70 2.2 Hearing Voices: Phonocentricism and the Fetishisation of O’Hara’s ‘Voice’ 83 2.3 The Telephone as an Index of Distance 91 2.4 ‘Hello, this is George Gordon, Lord Byron’: Voice as a Cipher of Subjectivity 102 2.5 ‘I say to myself, you are too serious a girl for that’: Prosopopoeia and the Voice as Performance 118 Chapter Three: ‘Is it Dirty? … That’s What You Think of in the City’: Frank O’Hara, Edwin Denby and the Mythologising of the Homosexual Flâneur 133 3.1 O’Hara in New York: Manhattan, the Man and the Making of Mythology 133 3.2 Loitering Within the Queer Constellations of New York City 147 3.3 A Palimpsest of Queer Historiography 153 3.4 ‘Commercial Variations’: Plaiting Together the Myth of the Self and the City 160 3.5 An Epic Walk Down ‘Second Avenue’ 168 3.6 The Look of Love: Visibility, Desire, Subjectivity and Walking in the City 185 3.7 ‘Somehow, he gives an equation in which attention equals Life’: Loitering with Intent 203 3.8 Digression, Dirt and Desire 209 Chapter Four: Death and `Disaster in New York City 222 4.1 The Many Deaths of Frank O’Hara 222 4.2 ‘You Don’t Say the Victim is Responsible for a Concentration Camp or a Mack Truck’: The Myth of the Poet as Victim to Society 248 4.3 ‘I Drink to Die a Little’: The Myth of the Self-Destructive Poet 264 4.4 ‘O Boris Pasternak!’: O’Hara’s Alignment with Boris Pasternak 272 4.5 ‘Memorial Day 1950’: The Interplay Between the Personal and the Historical 285 4.6 ‘In Memory of My Feelings’: Selfhood as Ecstatic Self-Loss 299 Conclusion 304 Bibliography 344 List of Illustrations 1 Jasper Johns, Memory Piece (Frank O’Hara), 1961-70, wood, lead, brass, rubber, 9 sand and sculpt-metal, collection of the artist 2 Mario Schifano, photograph of Frank O’Hara on the telephone, New York, 72 1965 3 Fred McDarrah, photograph of Frank O’Hara at the Museum of Modern Art, 75 New York, 20 January 1960 4 Jane Freilicher, Frank O’Hara, 1951, oil on canvas, collection of Ariel Follett 77 O’Hara, Chicago, and J. Philip O’Hara, Providence 5 Cover of Digressions on Some Poems by Frank O’Hara: A Memoir, by Joe LeSueur 78 (New York: Macmillan, 2004) 6 Film still from USA Poetry episode featuring Frank O’Hara and Ed Sanders 99 7 Photograph of plaque commemorating Frank O’Hara, 90 University Place, 133 New York 8 Photograph of plaque commemorating Frank O’Hara, 441 East Ninth Street, 134 New York 9 Larry Rivers, O’Hara Nude with Boots, 1954, oil on canvas, collection of the artist, 190 New York 10 James Ensor, Self Portrait with Masks, 1899, oil on canvas, Menard Art Museum, 198 Komaki, Japan 11 Camille McGrath, photograph of Larry Rivers speaking at Frank O’Hara’s 225 funeral, Springs Cemetery, Long Island, New York, 27 July 1966 12 Alfred Leslie, The Telephone Call, 1971-71, oil on canvas, Mildred Lane Kemper 256 Museum, Saint Louis 13 Alfred Leslie, The Cocktail Party, 1967-78, oil on canvas, Mildred Lane Kemper 257 Museum, Saint Louis 14 Alfred Leslie, The Loading Pier, 1975, oil on canvas, Mildred Lane Kemper 259 Museum, Saint Louis 15 Alfred Leslie, The Accident, 1969, oil on canvas, Mildred Lane Kemper Museum, 262 Saint Louis 16 Frank O’Hara smoking and reading, uncredited photograph 269 17 Full-page advertisement for Doctor Zhivago, Evergreen Review 2, no. 7 (Winter 274 1959) 18 Instagram picture by user @poetic_outlaws, 20 August 2018. 312 19 Instagram picture by user @selodrama, 13 January 2018. 313 20 Francisco de Zurbarán, The Matrydom of Saint Serapion, 120 x 103 cm, oil on 332 canvas, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT 21 Paparazzi shot of Jennifer Lawrence carrying her Lunch Poems purse on 26 343 August 2018 8 Chapter One: Reading and Writing the Myth of Frank O’Hara 1.1 Mythmaking as a Collective Social Act: The Embodied Icon Frank O’Hara’s influence, even more than sixty years after his most well-known poems were written, still prevails. Traces of this influence can be found in the work of his peers; in many of the second-generation New York School poets; in James Tate and Alice Notley; and in a whole cast of younger writers, poets and artists who have responded to O’Hara’s work, initiated intertextual dialogues with his poetry, or appropriated the ‘O’Hara brand.’ The famous myth of O’Hara on the phone has continued to gain momentum; for example, in Anne Waldman’s poem, ‘A Phonecall From Frank O’Hara’; Rachel Tourmino’s poem, ‘Being on the Phone with You (after Frank O’Hara)’; and in Andrew Hamilton’s blues piece, ‘Frank O’Hara on the Phone.’1 In this sense, even after his death O’Hara is the site for renewed textual fecundity.