Mr O'Hara

By Sophie Rae-Jordan

(You can read the parent post to this essay here.)

Have you forgotten what we were like then

when we were still first rate

and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth

it's no use worrying about Time

but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves

and turned some sharp corners

the whole pasture looked like our meal

we didn't need speedometers

we could manage cocktails out of ice and water

I wouldn't want to be faster

or greener than now if you were with me O you

were the best of all my days

I. Frank O’Hara’s poem, Animals, is an exercise in complete poetic-craftmanship over plain idiomatic language, creating one of the most cohesive and tight poems that I have ever read. What seems to be the biggest achievement in Animals is that all the way down, and from every angle, the same feeling is achieved: one of timeless, primordial love. O’Hara’s mastery is evident in a complete lack of excess. There is no marking of any specific time period so much as denoting all of time, no flaunting of any agenda, and no flowery indulgence which distracts the reader by highlighting the isolated beauty of such words together. Instead, O’Hara clinically pulls from the layman’s phrasebook idiom after idiom and pieces them together like a puzzle, so they nestle against each other with such connection that when you step back, it becomes clear that each piece was necessary for the picture as a whole. Thus, part of what makes this poem art is O’Hara’s technical skill in wielding the world and something so vast as language with such impeccable precision, to execute a vision.

The poem is structured in four three-lined stanzas. O’Hara’s vision is framed in the first and last stanzas, while the middle two stanzas are, in a sense, ‘evidence’ for this case. One might ask whether in poetry it is possible or necessary to speculate the division of a poem into such a simple or well-defined structure. In the case of Animals, it seems so, because it is a simple poem; this is another demonstration of O’Hara’s supreme technical capability in action. He uses language in a fundamental and utilitarian way, an antithesis to frivolous writing, so that each successive word, line and then stanza build upon the former discretely to achieve his vision as precisely and efficiently as seems humanely possible. It is clean. He does this without being overly literal, so that the reader is held at arm’s length and encouraged to step into this world which emerges line after line.

II. With the structure considered, let us move to the good part: reading the poem. The following sections will now consider each stanza in order. Here is the first:

have you forgotten what we were like then
When we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth

O’Hara begins with a recall to the past, and what O’Hara is recalling, and where the poem situates us, is within a time where a relationship between two people was better than it is now. It is a reflection on this relationship in hindsight. It is a time when their love was "still first rate". This line denotes at least two things: how wonderful the relationship was during this time, and that it is not like that anymore. This poem emphasizes the former and is almost silent on the latter.

It is here we begin to get the lush imagery of abundance and overflowing prosperity which pervades Animals. We are taken to a time where the day came "fat with an apple in its mouth". We are taken to a place where the day becomes an entire feast, it is abundant, each vital minute a celebration and good fortune. This is a love that is optimistic and life-affirming. O’Hara continues:

it's no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners

With the framing of the poem established, O’Hara clarifies that while the relationship was so vital, there is "no use worrying about Time". This line seems to me to be a sort of stoic acknowledgement of time gone past and its irreversibility. Perhaps, in some ways, it is a clarification that this part of the poem has not been written in yearning. While O’Hara admits that the clock cannot turn back, he has still deemed this relationship worthy of revisiting. It soon becomes clear that this is a poem written to celebrate this love. The following lines show us why O’Hara is celebrating.

For a start, the pair "did have a few tricks up [their] sleeves". This line gives an air of utility and proud thriftiness to the couple, and makes me think in particular of young relationships where love and willingness overcome material obstacles with vitality and resilience. Those 'tricks' are how the couple have not only faced, but "turned some sharp corners". This line always strikes me for its clear and evocative use of the word ‘sharp’ and imagery of the corner: its demonstrates so well the sharp-edge of circumstances that have been overcome. Paired with the use of 'tricks' on the previous line, we get the image of a couple who are versatile and resilient when together. This stanza is a note from O’Hara towards the couples’ tenacity.

the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn't need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water

Again, in the third stanza, we are brought into O’Hara’s world of lush, rich fullness; specifically, he shows prosperity absent materiality. This stanza must be a favourite of mine for the abundance in life and maximal vitality that O’Hara is again celebrating. It is invigorating.

The first line, “The whole pasture looked like our meal”, is what sets this theme of abundance. It evokes an evergreen and almost utopian view of the world which seems to be achieved only when the couple are together. It is a world where we are animals, seeing the world as a whole field at our feet, stretching forward in lush, rich greenery ready for the taking. Despite the sharp corners, despite the necessity for tricks, the world is a whole pasture providing for us, in all its grassy abundance and fruitfulness. This line also seems to me, at least, to be indicative of the title, for the couple are reduced in some ways from a complicated human life to something that is ultimately satisfied simply by surviving, a state where life and company alone is worth celebrating. Here is where I feel the essence of primordial love which seems to be a theme in this poem (or at least, is a feeling evoked within me when I read it): that the couple that O’Hara writes of have some sort of vital, primordial attraction or connection to each other that would probably happen in various iterations of the world.

The line, "we didn't need speedometers", indicates the timelessness of this love as an active rejection of measured time (and speed). This is a love that is, instead, felt and embodied in its own duration. This gives the poem an air of distance from the reality of others, evoking the effervescent dwelling of their own. Partially what contributes to this is the following lines’ hopefulness: "we could manage cocktails out of ice and water", perhaps my favourite line in the poem. It is to say that when they were together, the couple could find the luscious and delightful from the fundamental parts of the world. Together, they were capable of enjoying the luxurious and exuberant, afforded by no means other than their merely being together in some basic environment. Not only did they manage the elaborate from this, but they were also intoxicated by it; thriving with such energy that “we didn’t need speedometers”. They saw the sweet and the delicious in the most basic parts of the world, a rich positive imagining in every way.

I wouldn't want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days

The last stanza must be one of the most beautiful endings to a poem. It seems, unlike the rest of the poem, to not divide into discrete lines; instead, it seems to roll forward in a single breath, a sigh of relief. The absence of grammar seems in part to contribute to this, and although the entire poem is absent of grammar, this is the only stanza where line breaks do not seem to indicate the end of a line; for example, the ‘or’ at the beginning of the second line, and the continuation of this line in the third.

It is because of this ambiguous line structure that how this stanza is read seems to vary from person to person. I personally read the first line to be "I wouldn’t want to be faster / or greener than now if you were with me" and take this to mean that 'if I am with you (or when I was with you), I do not want anything more (faster or greener) than now because now (with you) is enough'. The use of "faster" and “greener” further builds on the imagery of luscious abundance which has developed over the body of the poem. The use of now, or present time, seems to contribute further to the idea of purely embodied, felt time. This last stanza changes the tone of the poem to one where O’Hara is yearning: he admits, after all his celebration, in one last romantic sigh that "O you / were the best of all my days". Here it seems that O’Hara cannot help himself but to spill out 'O you' before the line break, as just the thought of this person has overtaken his consciousness of the poem that he is writing. This person, this love, was the best of all his days.


III. Once you step into O’Hara’s landscape, suddenly, the whole world of Animals appears glisteningly clear. O’Hara takes the concrete world; its’ elements, temperature, colour, time and speed, and pulls them together abstractly to explore this love at arms-length. It is almost as if O’Hara is holding the world loosely in his hands, letting it fit the shape of his palm as he pleases. He does this while tightly knitting idiomatic language in an incredibly economical and concise way – not once during the body of the poem does the reader feel excess except where it is most appropriate: in the "O you" in the final stanza. Here, O’Hara finally looks his ex-lover in the eye. He knows what he is doing; this is what grounds the entire poem, what gives it final relief and gratification and exasperation all at once. It is his one and only well-timed flourish, a deserved and calculated indulgence for the reader. The result is an exploration, intense, yet completely calm and distanced. It is human excellence: the technical precision coupled with the poetic intuition to withhold until the ripest moment, O you.