Frank O’Hara

Bio

(1926-1966) Poet. Frank O’Hara was born in Baltimore, Maryland; he lived at 441 East 9th Street, near Tompkins Square Park, the Lower East Side, New York, New York. His collection of poems, “A Byzantine Place,” and “Try! Try!,” a verse play, won O’Hara the Avery Hopwood Major Award in poetry. O’Hara then moved to New York to join fellow poet John Ashbery whom he had met at Harvard. Living at first on the money from the Hopwood, O’Hara wrote poetry and explored the city. In New York, O’Hara was free to indulge his interest in the arts. O’Hara began to write articles for “Art News” and in 1953 became an editorial associate. He continued to write for the publication when he returned to the Museum of Modern Art in 1955. O’Hara (with John Ashbery and Kenneth Koch) became part of the avant-garde art scene which was then developing around abstract expressionism.