Jan 27

O'Hara Second Avenue

Using the various resources and contextualizing information, etc., discuss the poem in your group and prepare points to share with the class.

1. Choose a section of 20 or so lines and do a close reading. A close reading is one in which you literally interpret every word, phrase, and line, and look up references, definitions and etc. This is not in order to get at a single meaning, but in fact to see possible ways of reading the words and lines toward possible meanings. Make notes in the margins, underline, write definitions and clarifying info on the text. Go through and discuss word by word/ line by line but don't worry about making a meaning or coming to a particular explanation of the whole section. Focus on the pieces one at a time.

2. Choose another 2-3 sections of 2-20 lines or so and discuss them in terms of other more general things (tone, style, emotion or feeling, sounds, associative qualities, process, practice, form (vs content or form as content).

3. Offer some comments on the whole of this work in terms of what it does, how it functions, how it is a poem and a poetics/praxis (theory and practice). Don't worry about meaning or explicating the whole poem as a narrative, but think about the relation between form and content, O'Hara as a poet, musician, and as involved in the visual art world, and the kinds of things you think about after all of this reading the poem and reading about the poem, etc.

Additional notes:

Consider the connotative and denotative elements of the text, language

Think about syntax and juxtaposition, parataxis and hypotaxis, the influence of visual art including collage and montage, fragmentation and form