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Rating: 
Summary: classic work that changed american poetry
Review: Frank O'Hara's _Lunch Poems_ contains a number of greats including the famous poem, "The Day Lady Died." Each verse is infused with spirit and life and peppered with O'Hara's keen sense of urban observation.What I especially like about this particular edition is its diminuitive size -- great to sneak into any bookbag or briefcase for a quick dose of O'Hara on the morning train ride.
Rating: 
Summary: Book
Review: Hello my literate friends. I want to tell you something. This is a book of poems and I should not be writing a review for it. It is famous everywhere except here, and we are here. But I will tell you what you should know to buy this book. That is my job. Now that we have that clear. These poems are beautiful and good. They are also talky, which is a word my friend Mark Halliday uses, which means that they might sometimes seem close to prose. They are called Lunch Poems because that is the idea, poems that you might compose on your lunch break, walking around New York with some change in your pocket, if you are Frank O'Hara. They seem silly sometimes, and they are, but they are not meaningless: they convey a voice which is suitable and believable and honest. I think you will like this book. I will tell you a secret: in my copy of this book, City Lights has increased (somehow) the font size, or the kerning or whatever, so that some lines run-over onto the next. In the original version this did not happen. This is a minor detail that I want to tell you about because you deserve to know. City Lights if you are reading this: hello, and, please fix it. Thank you.
Rating:
Summary: and the only decision you can make is that you did it
Review: O'Hara exemplifies living and writing and understanding something which you'll get once you get the book. I can hardly describe it. I can hardly quote a line or eight or forty which can explain to you why I love and you will love it. BUY THIS EVEN IF YOU HAVE THE COLLECTED POEMS. The volume itself is special. It fits right between your leg and your pants, smooth. Get this and get it.
Rating:
Summary: and the only decision you can make is that you did it
Review: O'Hara exemplifies living and writing and understanding something which you'll get once you get the book. I can hardly describe it. I can hardly quote a line or eight or forty which can explain to you why I love and you will love it. BUY THIS EVEN IF YOU HAVE THE COLLECTED POEMS. The volume itself is special. It fits right between your leg and your pants, smooth. Get this and get it.
Rating:
Summary: Beatnik Bible
Review: The best collection of poetry written after World War II that I am aware of, "Lunch Poems" brings together the high culture and low culture. O'Hara was known for hanging out with the '50s elite of celebrity and progresive painters, musicians, and actors. Yet he also had an affinity for walking the streets of New York alone at lunchtime or evening, befriending vagrants, observing day to day work and the diversity of metropolitan life. His poems are witty, profound, insightful, original, inspiring, and always unsettling the reader with his unusual observations about life. O'Hara is incredibly literate and knows his poetic heritage, but through "Lunch Poems" he remains intenseley aware of his present and the importance of what goes on around him. Between musings on Charles Baudelaire, Billie Holiday, Arthur Rimbaud, and Miles Davis, one gets the sense of a rootless, absorbing man in love with New York City, art, poetry, daily life, and transcendent experience.
Rating:
Summary: Diversions and Daydreams
Review: The perfect introduction to the poetry of O'Hara, "Lunch Poems" is a celebration of life in New York City with art, poetry, music, friends, and of course, the movies. This book contains 'Ave Maria' with the marvelous opening lines: Mothers of America
let your kids go to the movies!
get them out of the house so they won't know what you're up to
it's true that fresh air is good for the body
but what about the soul
that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images... I wish I could remember what generous soul suggested that I read this little book of poems in college, but my expression of gratitude remains unfulfilled. From "Lunch Poems" I tackled the collected poems and never looked back, eventually writing my senior year thesis on O'Hara and film. This little volume, however, retains a special place in my book collection since it was my first O'Hara and my first poetry book. My copy is worn from many trips on trains and airplanes - the perfect antidote to the mind-numbing experience we call travel. To paraphrase the last line of 'A Step Away From Them': My heart is in my pocket, it is Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara.
Rating:
Summary: Diversions and Daydreams
Review: The perfect introduction to the poetry of O'Hara, "Lunch Poems" is a celebration of life in New York City with art, poetry, music, friends, and of course, the movies. This book contains 'Ave Maria' with the marvelous opening lines: Mothers of America
let your kids go to the movies!
get them out of the house so they won't know what you're up to
it's true that fresh air is good for the body
but what about the soul
that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images... I wish I could remember what generous soul suggested that I read this little book of poems in college, but my expression of gratitude remains unfulfilled. From "Lunch Poems" I tackled the collected poems and never looked back, eventually writing my senior year thesis on O'Hara and film. This little volume, however, retains a special place in my book collection since it was my first O'Hara and my first poetry book. My copy is worn from many trips on trains and airplanes - the perfect antidote to the mind-numbing experience we call travel. To paraphrase the last line of 'A Step Away From Them': My heart is in my pocket, it is Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara.
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