Madison Square Reads:
A Strictly New York Joie de Vivre: Celebrating the Work of Frank O’Hara
With Billy Collins and Paul Violi
Presented by the National Book Foundation

August 2, 2007, 6:30 PM
Madison Square Park
Located between Fifth and Madison Avenues and 23rd and 26th Streets
New York City

From MadisonSquarePark.org:

The poet Frank O’Hara (awarded the National Book Award for Poetry posthumously in 1972) was a key figure in the postwar New York School of poets and painters which includes poets John Ashbery and James Schuyler, and painters Larry Rivers and Jasper Johns. His deceptively straightforward poems are in fact complex representations of a revolutionary sensibility. O’Hara’s influence on succeeding generations of poets, as well as on the cultural landscape of New York City, is undeniable. Poets Billy Collins and Paul Violi will read from O’Hara’s work as well as their own, and discuss O’Hara’s continuing influence on contemporary poetry and the literary culture of New York City. Billy Collins was United States Poet Laureate from 2001–2003; he has published eight collections of poetry and edited two anthologies of contemporary poetry. Paul Violi is the author of twelve poetry books and has been published widely in magazines and anthologies. His many poetry awards include grants from The American Academy of Arts and Letters and The Ingram Merrill Foundation. He teaches in the New School graduate writing program and at Columbia University. Poet and critic Craig Morgan Teicher will moderate. Craig Morgan Teicher’s poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in many publications, including, The Paris Review, The Yale Review, Bookforum, and Poets & Writers. His first book, Brenda Is In The Room And Other Poems, won the 2007 Colorado Prize for Poetry and is due out this November. He works as an editor at Publishers Weekly.

November 2006:
NYC Events: Poets House, The Poetry Project and MoMA

From MoMA.org:

Passwords: Bill Berkson on Frank O’Hara
Tuesday, November 28, 7:00 p.m.
Poets House, 72 Spring Street, Second floor

Poet Bill Berkson explores the life and work of O’Hara (1926-1986) in the year 1956, at the time of his thirtieth birthday, when he was preparing the manuscript of his first major collection, Meditations in an Emergency.

Bill Berkson is a poet, critic, teacher and sometime curator, who is the author of sixteen books and pamphlets of poetry, including the recent collections Serenade and Fugue State. During the 1960s he collaborated with Frank O’Hara on Hymns of St. Bridget & Other Writings. He teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Tickets ($7; free to members of Poet’s House, the Poetry Project, and MoMA) are available at the door on the evening of the program. For more information please call (212) 431-7920.

Frank O’Hara Reading
Wednesday, November 29, 8:00 p.m.
The Poetry Project, St. Mark’s Church, 131 East 10 Street, at Second Avenue

With Bill Berkson, Anselm Berrigan, CA Conrad, Bob Holman, Patricia Spears Jones, Kimberly Lyons, Eileen Myles, Ron Padgett, David Shapiro, Lytle Shaw, John Yau, and others

Tickets ($8; $7students and seniors; $5 MoMA members; free to Members of Poet’s House and the Poetry Project) are available at the door on the evening of the program. For more information, please call (212) 674-0910.

Frank O’Hara at MoMA
Thursday, November 30, 6:00 p.m.
The Celeste Bartos Theater and MoMA Library and Archives Reading Rooms
The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building
4 West 54 Street

Frank O’Hara worked at The Museum of Modern Art on and off for fifteen years—first selling postcards, then curating exhibitions, writing catalogue copy, and composing poems during his lunch hour. This program features poets John Ashbery and Bill Berkson, artist Alfred Leslie, and Museum Archivist Michelle Elligott as they share their memories of O’Hara and his love for poetry and art during his time at MoMA. Selected archival material from the Frank O’Hara Papers, such as correspondence, handwritten notes, and installation photographs, and printed materials such as illustrated books of poetry and exhibition catalogues, will be on view in the Library and Archives’s new Reading Rooms.

Tickets ($10, MoMA, Poets House, and Poetry Project members $8, students and seniors $5)  can be purchased at the lobby information desk and the Film and Media desk, or online at www.ticketweb.com.

***UPDATE: Listen to an audio recording of the November 30th MoMA event***