酷我-北美枫

[anna]

glad that my poem (an essay written for ModPo): A Close Reading of "Lana Turner has collapsed!" by Frank O'Hara, inspired an American poet to write another Lana poem and both were nominated for IBPC poetry contest... the judge will smile and wonder how much fun we have...

Here is my poem:

A Close Reading of "Lana Turner has collapsed!" by Frank O'Hara

The rain just stopped, and I looked outside;
the sky began to clear up.

It is fall of 2014 and I am writing this in our northern country:
Mr. O'Hara was trotting along in the snowing and raining Feb of 1962,
on the way to Wagner College on the Staten Island in New York…
(Thanks to Google)

On my screen, I continue tracing his lines:
"I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky"…
Hail and traffic. Well, Mr. O'Hara, if you rise from the grave in the south,
you should consider yourself lucky for not being in this Big Smoke city!

But what do I know? I wasn’t born then…
So many things might have happened…
From ModPo team's discussions,
Mr. O'Hara promoted Autobiographia Literaria
"You just go on your nerve…"

"You just go on your nerve…"
So I follow Mr. O'Hara's steps –
on the ferry, "suddenly see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!"

At the present I can simply trace "I do this, I do that"…
although the present tense has become a past tense by now
and his statements of "there is no snow in Hollywood,
there is no rain in California" have probably remained true.
Still… I have missed Mr. O'Hara’s lots of parties
where he claimed to have "acted perfectly disgraceful,
and never actually collapsed" –
(in my curiosity , I long to see that)
So I call out, "Oh O'Hara we love you get up"
as if he pleads "Oh Lana Turner we love you get up"

On TV, a local headline caught my eye:
"Rob Ford announced his stepping down."
Thank God!
Surely his isn't a collapse like Lana Turner's fall,
which according to her fifth husband was due to working so hard
and only sleeping four hours a night…

The weather reporter warns us:
"There will be snow in Toronto,
there will be rain elsewhere…"
Still I think I will go to lots of parties
and act perfectly gracefully.
Oh Rob Ford we love you step down.
Oh Lana Turner we love you get up.
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com

[[星子安娜]]

glad that my poem (an essay written for ModPo): A Close Reading of "Lana Turner has collapsed!" by Frank O'Hara, inspired an American poet to write another Lana poem and both were nominated for IBPC poetry contest... the judge will smile and wonder how much fun we have...

Here is my poem:

A Close Reading of "Lana Turner has collapsed!" by Frank O'Hara

The rain just stopped, and I looked outside;
the sky began to clear up.

It is fall of 2014 and I am writing this in our northern country:
Mr. O'Hara was trotting along in the snowing and raining Feb of 1962,
on the way to Wagner College on the Staten Island in New York…
(Thanks to Google)

On my screen, I continue tracing his lines:
"I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky"…
Hail and traffic. Well, Mr. O'Hara, if you rise from the grave in the south,
you should consider yourself lucky for not being in this Big Smoke city!

But what do I know? I wasn’t born then…
So many things might have happened…
From ModPo team's discussions,
Mr. O'Hara promoted Autobiographia Literaria
"You just go on your nerve…"

"You just go on your nerve…"
So I follow Mr. O'Hara's steps –
on the ferry, "suddenly see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!"

At the present I can simply trace "I do this, I do that"…
although the present tense has become a past tense by now
and his statements of "there is no snow in Hollywood,
there is no rain in California" have probably remained true.
Still… I have missed Mr. O'Hara’s lots of parties
where he claimed to have "acted perfectly disgraceful,
and never actually collapsed" –
(in my curiosity , I long to see that)
So I call out, "Oh O'Hara we love you get up"
as if he pleads "Oh Lana Turner we love you get up"

On TV, a local headline caught my eye:
"Rob Ford announced his stepping down."
Thank God!
Surely his isn't a collapse like Lana Turner's fall,
which according to her fifth husband was due to working so hard
and only sleeping four hours a night…

The weather reporter warns us:
"There will be snow in Toronto,
there will be rain elsewhere…"
Still I think I will go to lots of parties
and act perfectly gracefully.
Oh Rob Ford we love you step down.
Oh Lana Turner we love you get up.
_________________
---------------------

Anna Yin

《爱的灯塔-星子安娜双语诗选》
<Nightlights> <Seven Nights with the Chinese Zodiac> ...

http://annapoetry.com