New York School of Poets

Presented by:

Averill Labrador

Michelle Mayo, Jefrille Jocosing, and Charlotte Rivera

Quick Activity Discuss with your table what you think the New York

School of Poets was. Raise your hands when you are ready to share your thoughts.

New York School of Poets

1950’s -1960’s

Inspiration derived from surrealism and modernism Surrealism -cultural movement which began in the 1920’s

“Element of surprise”.

Modernism- A style or movement in the arts that aims to break with classical and traditional forms.

rejection of the dominant school of confessional poetry

deeply influenced by the action painters of the 1950s and 1960s, particularly Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Larry Rivers.

New York School of Poets cont.

Had commonalities with the beats.

Confessional frankness

Serious and ironic

Interest in surreal combination of high art and art illusions

Aesthetic mode

Urban aspects and modernism

Helped people see the world in different ways

Barbara Guest

Barbara Guest

Born in Wilmington, North Carolina, 1920

Attended UCLA and UC Berkeley, graduated in 1943

First generation writer for the New York School of Poets in her early career

Art News magazine in 1950s, continued to write articles and reviews for many art magazines.

Tension between the lyrical (or musical) and the graphic (or material) is a defining feature of her work, and her poetry often utilizes space as a way to draw attention to language.

Barbara Guest cont.

She received multiple honors in the poetry community

Died on February 15, 2006

Notable Works

The Red Gaze (Wesleyan University Press, 2005)

Miniatures and Other Poems (2002)

Symbiosis (1999)

Defensive Rapture (1994)

Fair Realism (1989)

Musicality (1988)

The Nude (1986)

Quilts (1980)

Biography (1980).

Echoes

Once more riding down to Venice on borrowed horses,

the air free of misdemeanor, at rest in the inns of our fathers.

Once again whiteness like the white chandelier.

Echoes of other poems...

Analysis

Title: Echoes: any repetition or close imitation (sounds, opinions, ideas, etc)

Paraphrase: Again, Going to Venice on horses that we borrowed/ There are no crimes or misbehavior that took place in the homes of our ancestors/ There is purity once more/

Shifts: lines 2&3 “Echoes of other poems…”

Figurative language: Symbolism, simile, repetition diction, personification

Analysis cont.

Attitude: Positive, relief, reassurance

Structure: Free verse

Use of “…”

Title/Theme: Life is a cycle and misdemeanor is always followed by reoccurrence of peace and purity

AP Prompt #1

After reading Barbara Guest’s, Echoes, analyze the ways in which she uses figurative language to portray a certain theme while discussing its relation to the New York School of Poets.

Quick!

What was a defining feature of Barbara Guest’s work?

Kenneth Koch

Kenneth Koch

Kenneth Koch was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 27, 1925.

He studied at Harvard University, where he received his Bachelor of Arts degree, and attended Columbia University for his Ph.D.

Originating at Harvard, where Koch met fellow students Frank O'Hara and John Ashbery, the New York School derived much of its inspiration from the works of action painters Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Larry Rivers, whom the poets met in the 1950s after settling in New York City.

Kenneth Koch had an obscure way of poetry

Kenneth Koch cont.

His numerous honors include

The Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry awarded by the Library of Congress in 1996

As well as awards from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and Ingram-Merrill foundations.

Notable Works

A Momentary Longing To Hear Sad Advice From One Long Dead

The Magic of Numbers

To My Father's Business

To Various Persons Talked To All At Once

To You

I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut

That will solve a murder case unsolved for years

Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window

Through which he saw her head, connecting with

Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red

Roof in her heart. For this we live a thousand years;

For this we love, and we live because we love, we are not

Inside a bottle, thank goodness! I love you as a

Kid searches for a goat; I am crazier than shirttails

In the wind, when you’re near, a wind that blows from

To You cont.

The big blue sea, so shiny so deep and so unlike us;

I think I am bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields

Always, to be near you, even in my heart

When I’m awake, which swims, and also I believe that you

Are trustworthy as the sidewalk which leads me to

The place where I again think of you, a new

Harmony of thoughts! I love you as the sunlight leads the prow

Of a ship which sails

From Hartford to Miami, and I love you

Best at dawn, when even before I am awake the sun

Receives me in the questions which you always

Analysis

Title: Thought of it to be a love poem to someone

Paraphrase: Kenneth Koch is telling all these examples of why he loves who he loves.

Shifts- Line 6/7, where it shows the intensity through repetition

Figurative Language- Repetition (Line 6/7) “We”

Imagery

Simile

Metaphor

Diction

Analysis Cont.

Attitude (tone): The tone is shown that Koch is in love with this one person but he is willing to do anything and everything to be with his love.

Structure- He uses a unique way of grammar to show how he wants to perceive his love and within the structure is shows him creating new lines a certain points in language.

Title/Theme: The theme is that love can be seen as a journey of discovery of all the qualities of the one you love and loving them for who they are and how they can help you accomplish great things.

AP Prompt #2

In Kenneth Koch’s, To You, he uses figurative language such as repetition, imagery, and diction. Discuss the ways in which he utilizes these techniques to relate to the poem as a whole.

Quick!

In what way did Kenneth Koch write his poetry?

John Ashbery

1927- Present

Father – Farmer, mother – Biology teacher

Attended Deerfield academy

Wystan Hugh Auden &  Dylan Thomas

Attended Hardvard graduated in 1949.

Recieves Fullbright Fellowship.

During this time he becomes an editor of the 12 issues of Art and Literature

served as the art editor for the European edition of the New York Herald Tribune

1963, Andy Warhol , known for pop art.

John Ashbery

A Wave (1984)

Mirror (1975)

Three Poems (1972)

April Galleons (1987)

Shadow Train (1981)

The Double Dream of Spring (1970)

Turandot and Other Poems (1953)

John Ashbery cont.

The Painter Sitting between the sea and the buildingsHe enjoyed painting the sea’s portrait.But just as children imagine a prayerIs merely silence, he expected his subjectTo rush up the sand, and, seizing a brush,Plaster its own portrait on the canvas. So there was never any paint on his canvasUntil the people who lived in the buildingsPut him to work: “Try using the brushAs a means to an end. Select, for a portrait,Something less angry and large, and more subjectTo a painter’s moods, or, perhaps, to a prayer.”

The Painter cont.

How could he explain to them his prayerThat nature, not art, might usurp the canvas?He chose his wife for a new subject,Making her vast, like ruined buildings,As if, forgetting itself, the portraitHad expressed itself without a brush. Slightly encouraged, he dipped his brushIn the sea, murmuring a heartfelt prayer:“My soul, when I paint this next portraitLet it be you who wrecks the canvas.”The news spread like wildfire through the buildings:He had gone back to the sea for his subject. 

The Paint cont.

Imagine a painter crucified by his subject!Too exhausted even to lift his brush,He provoked some artists leaning from the buildingsTo malicious mirth: “We haven’t a prayerNow, of putting ourselves on canvas,Or getting the sea to sit for a portrait!” Others declared it a self-portrait.Finally all indications of a subjectBegan to fade, leaving the canvasPerfectly white. He put down the brush.At once a howl, that was also a prayer,Arose from the overcrowded buildings. They tossed him, the portrait, from the tallest of the buildings;And the sea devoured the canvas and the brushAs though his subject had decided to remain a prayer.

Analysis

Title: Painter , artistic or abstract point of view.

Paraphrase: There is guy painting the seas portrait , he expects his subject to do one thing but it does something else while not having paint. Then chooses different subjects e.g. his wife. He ends up leaving the canvas white and throwing it into the ocean.

Shifts: lines 4&5

Figurative language: Imagery

Symbolism

Prayer- Wishes / Ambitions

Portrait- Negative memories of inflictions caused upon him

Sea- disposal of the negative feelings

Buildings- realties of the world

Analysis cont.

Attitude: worried / anxiety

Title: Interpretation hasn't changed.

Theme: Portraying yourself in hobbies can be a source of escape from the real world and a stimulant to achieveing dreams

AP Prompt #3

In John Ashberry’s The Painter Imagery and symbolism are used to portray how there are many escapes to reality. Choose any literary merit in which this symbolism and imagery portray a message.

Frank O’ Hara

Frank O’ Hara

Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara

-March 27, 1926

-Born in Baltimore, Maryland

-Grew up in Massachussetts

-studied piano at the New England Conservatory in Boston

-Served in the South Pacific & Japan War

Frank O’ Hara cont.

Harvard College: Music

Met John Ashbery

published poems in the Harvard Advocate

changed major left Harvard in 1950 with a degree in English

One of the most distinguished members of the New York School of Poets source of inspiration for his highly original poetry

Notable Works

A City Winter (1952)

Meditations in an Emergency (1956)

Lunch Poems (1964)

Lines to A Depressed Friend

Joyous you should be,

of all things sweet the most constant and most pure,

eager for what might be obtained--

Luck and life and hideous certainty preventing,

ease and certainty inclining to neglect,

so that real world, blue in the eye! this

umber sky about us drowns. And where

emptiness appears bounding along, of

unrest the most diligent athlete and keenest mate,

remember the pleasure, even there, your beauty affords.

Analysis

Title: Advice to a depressed person from a caring friend.

Paraphrase: Stay hopeful for the future. No matter how much you can anticipate the negative things, always remember the beauty in everything.

Speaker: Author

Figurative Language: Personification- The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality. "so that the real world, blue in the eye!"

Analysis cont.

Attitude: Caring & Understanding.

Shift: Sadness and uncertainty to optimism.

Title: Interpretation hasn't changed.

Theme: There's always going to be the ugly in our world. Cruelty is imminent. Finding the strength to attain beauty through everything will get you through anything.

AP Prompt #4

Upon reading Frank O’ Hara’s, Lines to a Depressed Friend, discuss the ways in which he uses figurative language to portray a certain attitude and how it relates the poem as a whole.

Quick!

What made Frank O’ Hara one of the most distinguishable members of the New York School of poets?

Now that our presentation is coming to an end, tell us what you have learned about the New York School of Poets. Discuss what many of the poems contained and what the poets were influenced by.

Demonstrate Your Understanding

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Guest

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/677

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19116

http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/75

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-you-85/

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/kenneth-koch

http://books.google.com/books?id=J1evY4wjjy0C&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=lines+to+a+depressed+friend+by+frank+o'hara&source=bl&ots=IZuDALO8k_&sig=8JprfVJnuqiH4R1IU_8ysr65BRg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_lrRUP7aF4vU2QWnz4CYAQ&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ashberry