Category Archives: Influences on the NY School

Wallace Stevens and the New York School Poets

Posted on November 7, 2021 by Andrew Epstein

For a while now, I’ve been trying to make the case here and there that Wallace Stevens’s outsized influence on American avant-garde poetry — including on the poets of the New York School — has often been overlooked, to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Barbara Guest, Criticism, Frank O'Hara, Influences on the NY School, James Schuyler, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Ted Berrigan, Wallace Stevens | 2 Comments

Roundup of Recent “New York School of Poetry” News and Links (4/4/21)

Posted on April 5, 2021 by Andrew Epstein

I know it has been awfully quiet around here at Locus Solus over the past few months. A combination of pandemic craziness and being in the last stages of a long-term project has resulted in my needing to take a … Continue reading →

Posted in Abstract Expressionism, Alice Notley, Barbara Guest, Brian Glavey, Diane Di Prima, Dick Gallup, Frank O'Hara, Grace Hartigan, Harry Mathews, Helen Frankenthaler, In Memoriam, Influences on the NY School, James Schuyler, Joe Brainard, John Ashbery, John Cage, John Wieners, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Lewis Warsh, Marisol, Max Jacob, Music, NY School Influence, Ron Padgett, Roundup, Ted Berrigan, Visual Art | 4 Comments

Cecil Taylor (1929-2018), Frank O’Hara, Amiri Baraka

Posted on May 17, 2018 by Andrew Epstein

When the groundbreaking avant-garde jazz pianist and composer Cecil Taylor died last month, there was an outpouring of obituaries and tributes to his genius and influence.  But there was less attention paid to Taylor’s connections to the literary world, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Allen Ginsberg, Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Beats, Billie Holiday, Bob Kaufman, Cecil Taylor, Charles Olson, Frank O'Hara, Franz Kline, Gilbert Sorrentino, In Memoriam, Influences on the NY School, Jack Kerouac, Jazz, Kenneth Koch, Larry Rivers, Michael McClure, Morton Feldman, Music, Norman Mailer, NY School Influence, Ornette Coleman, Paul Blackburn, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Thelonious Monk | 1 Comment

On Frank O’Hara and Willem de Kooning

Posted on April 24, 2018 by Andrew Epstein

Well, I have my beautiful de Kooning to aspire to. I think it has an orange bed in it, more than the ear can hold. — Frank O’Hara, “Radio” Today is the birthday of the great painter Willem de Kooning, … Continue reading →

Posted in Abstract Expressionism, Frank O'Hara, Influences on the NY School, Jackson Pollock, Visual Art, Willem de Kooning | Leave a comment

John Ashbery’s First Love and Rimbaud

Posted on May 4, 2016 by Andrew Epstein

            In a new interview at the Brooklyn Rail with Jarrett Earnest, John Ashbery speaks candidly about an early, formative experience that I don’t recall seeing him ever mention before. When Jarrett says “a lot of people … Continue reading →

Posted in Arthur Rimbaud, French poetry, Influences on the NY School, Interview, John Ashbery, Translation, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Hilton Als on John Ashbery’s Rimbaud

Posted on February 26, 2016 by Andrew Epstein

In the New Yorker, Hilton Als reviews a new production called “Rimbaud in New York,” which is based on John Ashbery’s translation of Arthur Rimbaud’s great collection of prose poems, Illuminations.  As Als explains: Working from Ashbery’s translation of Rimbaud, the Civilians, a … Continue reading →

Posted in Arthur Rimbaud, French poetry, Influences on the NY School, John Ashbery, Theater / Plays, Translation | Leave a comment

New York School Sons (to Delmore Schwartz)

Posted on February 18, 2016 by Andrew Epstein

The New Yorker has posted a piece by John Ashbery on the writer Delmore Schwartz.  The essay, which Ashbery first gave as a talk in Japan in 1996, has not been easily accessible in print until now, but it will apparently … Continue reading →

Posted in Andy Warhol, Delmore Schwartz, Influences on the NY School, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Lou Reed, Music, Velvet Underground | Leave a comment

Drunk on the Poetry of a New Friend: John Wieners and Frank O’Hara

Posted on October 26, 2015 by Andrew Epstein

It’s been heartening to see all the recent attention to the poetry of John Wieners, whose moving, strange, and powerful poems deserve to be better known.  Wieners, an important but lesser-known figure within the post-World War II avant-garde scene known as “New American Poetry,” is … Continue reading →

Posted in Barbara Guest, Beats, Charles Olson, Frank O'Hara, Influences on the NY School, James Schuyler, John Bernard Myers, John Wieners, Marjorie Perloff, NY School Influence, Ted Berrigan | Leave a comment

Resurrecting Raymond Roussel, the “Proust of Dreams”

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Andrew Epstein

In the New York Times, Holland Cotter reviews the debut exhibit at the new Galerie Buchholz in New York which is “giving us something wonderful that we haven’t had before: a retrospective of the French writer Raymond Roussel (1877-1933).”  The brilliant and bizarre Roussel, … Continue reading →

Posted in Art Exhibit, French poetry, Harry Mathews, Influences on the NY School, John Ashbery, Locus Solus, Raymond Roussel | Leave a comment

Resurrecting Mayakovsky

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Andrew Epstein

In the TLS, Clare Cavanagh has an excellent and informative review of the new biography of the Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky by Bengt Jangfeldt (which I also wrote about a few months ago).  Mayakovsky, of course, is one of the towering avant-garde heroes in the New York … Continue reading →

Posted in Allen Ginsberg, Book Review, Boris Pasternak, Frank O'Hara, Influences on the NY School, Kenneth Koch, Vladimir Mayakovsky | Leave a comment