{"id":83004,"date":"2015-02-24T16:07:40","date_gmt":"2015-02-24T21:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=83004"},"modified":"2015-02-24T16:31:27","modified_gmt":"2015-02-24T21:31:27","slug":"and-frank-ohara-as-himself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/24\/and-frank-ohara-as-himself\/","title":{"rendered":"And Frank O\u2019Hara As Himself"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nWiB2bmDa4I?rel=0\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Warning: going down the Frank O&#8217;Hara reading rabbit hole can swallow your day. It\u2019s not that the poet\u2019s reading of <em>Lunch Poems<\/em> is such a revelation, by which I mean different from what you might have imagined in your head. Rather, he reads them <em>exactly<\/em> the way you imagine them, or even read them aloud yourself: conversational, matter-of-fact, and incidentally just touched with Boston. He\u2019s who you\u2019d cast to play him.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s gratifying when things look or sound or act as we picture them; it\u2019s nice not to have the limits of our imagination challenged. Or maybe that\u2019s what imagination is. Anyway, it doesn\u2019t happen often, and if we are surprised nowadays, there\u2019s nothing to blame but laziness. The last time I remember being pleasantly surprised by the synergy of a voice and a face was when I first saw a picture of Brian Lehrer.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YDLwivcpFe8?rel=0\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Warning: going down the Frank O&#8217;Hara reading rabbit hole can swallow your day. It\u2019s not that the poet\u2019s reading of Lunch Poems is such a revelation, by which I mean different from what you might have imagined in your head. Rather, he reads them exactly the way you imagine them, or even read them aloud [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[13678,971,14005,7221,165,605,7214,9311],"class_list":["post-83004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-faces","tag-frank-ohara","tag-lunch-poems","tag-poems","tag-poetry","tag-readings","tag-videos","tag-voices"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Here&#039;s Frank O&#039;Hara Reading from \u201cLunch Poems\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on Frank O\u2019Hara\u2019s distinctive voice.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/24\/and-frank-ohara-as-himself\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"And Frank O\u2019Hara As Himself by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"February 24, 2015 \u2013 Warning: going down the Frank O&#039;Hara reading rabbit hole can swallow your day. It\u2019s not that the poet\u2019s reading of Lunch Poems is such a revelation, by\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/24\/and-frank-ohara-as-himself\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-02-24T21:07:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-02-24T21:31:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/24\/and-frank-ohara-as-himself\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/24\/and-frank-ohara-as-himself\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"And Frank O\u2019Hara As Himself\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-02-24T21:07:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-02-24T21:31:27+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/24\/and-frank-ohara-as-himself\/\"},\"wordCount\":160,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"faces\",\"Frank O'Hara\",\"Lunch Poems\",\"poems\",\"poetry\",\"readings\",\"videos\",\"voices\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Our Daily Correspondent\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/24\/and-frank-ohara-as-himself\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/24\/and-frank-ohara-as-himself\/\",\"name\":\"Here's Frank O'Hara Reading from \u201cLunch Poems\u201d\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-02-24T21:07:40+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-02-24T21:31:27+00:00\",\"description\":\"Sadie Stein on Frank O\u2019Hara\u2019s distinctive voice.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/24\/and-frank-ohara-as-himself\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/24\/and-frank-ohara-as-himself\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/02\/24\/and-frank-ohara-as-himself\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"And Frank O\u2019Hara As Himself\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. 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