Quotes from book
Meditations in an Emergency (book)

Frank O'Hara

Meditations in an Emergency is a book of poetry by American poet Frank O'Hara, first published by Grove Press in 1957. Its title poem was first printed in the November 1954 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse.The name of the book is purported to derive from English poet John Donne's prose work, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, stemming from a joke between O'Hara and other members of the renowned New York School of poets. Critics have noted the influence of impressionism and abstract expressionism in the collection, with most of the poems detailing the theme of identity and everyday life in New York City.

Frank O'Hara photo

“It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so.
I admire you, beloved, for the trap you've set. It's like a final chapter no one reads because the plot is over.”

Frank O'Hara book Meditations in an Emergency (book)

Source: Meditations in an Emergency

Frank O'Hara photo

“Even trees understand me! Good heavens, I lie under
them, too, don't I? I'm just like a pile of leaves.”

Frank O'Hara book Meditations in an Emergency (book)

Source: Meditations in an Emergency

Frank O'Hara photo

“I love you. I love you,
but I’m turning to my verses
and my heart is closing
like a fist.”

Frank O'Hara book Meditations in an Emergency (book)

Source: Meditations in an Emergency

Frank O'Hara photo

“I've got to get out of here. I choose a piece of shawl and my dirtiest suntans. I'll be back, I'll re-emerge, defeated, from the valley; you don't want me to go where you go, so I go where you don't want me to.”

Frank O'Hara book Meditations in an Emergency (book)

Source: Meditations in an Emergency

Frank O'Hara photo

“Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.”

Frank O'Hara book Meditations in an Emergency (book)

Source: Mayakovsky, st. 4, from Meditations in an Emergency (1957).

Frank O'Hara photo

“My eyes are vague blue, like the sky, and change all the time; they are indiscriminate but fleeting, entirely specific and disloyal, so that no one trusts me. I am always looking away. Or again at something after it has given me up.”

Frank O'Hara book Meditations in an Emergency (book)

Source: Meditations in an Emergency

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