Slang Editorial :: Never Underestimate The Value Of A Holla'

Friday, July 31, 2009
Coke And Sardines

Alex Doorknobs was talking this week about how he's been turned back to Frank O'Hara again after digesting a recent This Recording post and it reminded me once again of how much I love the man:

Why I Am Not a Painter, by Frank O'Hara

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

(1971)

From here

Labels: authors, love, poetry

posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 7/31/2009 01:12:00 AM 0 comments

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