[ this post is for Michelle, who introduced me to this poem ]
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.
Frank O'Hara (1971)
3 comments:
One of the best poems ever. I know we joked that fiction writers were failed poets, but we didn't admit that poets were failed artists.
Sardines...
The other day in class, a student asked if I had a Fatal Words List. No, I said, I didn't, but obviously I should. Everyone should have a Fatal Words List.
I thought of you when she said that. We'd have rushed to scribble it in our journals. Each would have a poem about it in a week.
Fatal Sardines.
Thanks again for O'Hara.
much love--mb
What a delight! I so much miss those afternoons near the railroad tracks. Have a great weekend.
Love,
Brent
One of my favorites, of course. I think I am Frank O'Hara's self-proclaimed number one fan. A fave stanza from Poem is:
if I'd had a samovar
I'd have made him tea
and as hyacinths grow from
a pot he would love me
full poem here: Poem
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