Theme
As we head into a new year, we find the time for resolutions. There’s a lot going on in the world right now, and, due to the advent of 24-hour news cycles and social media, it seems like things are busier than ever. So, why not seek some peace this year? It’s important to actively find moments in your day, or your week, to take a second and turn your thoughts off: to press pause and sit in the space around you. This goes for business, too. General Mills, for instance, has a cultural practice of mindfulness built into their leadership system, and even have in-site meditation rooms. So, whether you’re at work or gearing up for a busy weekend, this month we’re making a resolution: to find a moment’s peace.
Who?
To help us in our search is Frank O’Hara (1926-1966). He knew all about how busy life can get, living for much of his life in the hustle and bustle of New York and working as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art. He lived a sadly abbreviated life, but in his forty years wrote hundreds of poems delighting in the sights, sounds, and smells of a fast-paced city often dashing off poems while at parties, out for lunch, or even while speaking on the phone. He knew, better than most, how to find moments of reflection within everyday chaos.
Poem
Light clarity avocado salad in the morning
after all the terrible things I do how amazing it is
to find forgiveness and love, not even forgiveness
since what is done is done and forgiveness isn’t love
and love is love nothing can ever go wrong
though things can get irritating boring and dispensable
(in the imagination) but not really for love
though a block away you feel distant the mere presence
changes everything like a chemical dropped on a paper
and all thoughts disappear in a strange quiet excitement
I am sure of nothing but this, intensified by breathing
What?
The poem I’ve chosen is, like many of O’Hara’s poems, simply titled ‘Poem’. It’s very much a fresh start: beginning with a bite of avocado, a moment that retains the simplicity of the title, but that gives rise to profound feelings of ‘clarity’ and ‘light’ – these words are even spaced out on the page to encourage the reader to slow down.
Then we might notice what the poem’s missing: punctuation (there are only two commas in eleven lines). It suggests that the poem, and wandering thoughts it considers, is all unravelling from this moment’s reflection over breakfast. The lasting lesson is to take time and joy in the smallest moments, to be aware of everything around you, and know that not thinking is sometimes important: ‘all thoughts disappear in a strange quiet excitement’. Then, with the second comma in the final line, we find that vital comma gives a moment of pause, that space for thinking, ‘intensified by breathing’. Try and find your own comma from time to time: punctuate your day carefully, and with purpose.
The Broader Context
O’Hara was part of a group of poets known as The New York School, who were all, in different ways, interested in what it means to live and write in a busy city. They would often meet – in cafes, bars, or parties – and discuss and read each other’s poetry. There was an exchange of ideas and living voices: part of the peace they found was by talking and listening to each other, helping each of them to grow as poets. O’Hara’s poems therefore love to be spoken. Try reading the poem above aloud: notice how it changes in the air, pay attention to the pauses it makes in your voice, to the way its pace ebbs and flows, allow it to wash over you. It’s almost like meditation.
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