Beauty on Fire Island

Beauty as defined by Baudellaire invariably consists of two elements: the eternal or invariable and the relative or circumstantial. By this definition, Frank O’Hara’s poem “A True Account of Talking to the Sun on Fire Island” can surely be described as beautiful. On one hand, much of the poem is relative to the author and his situation. He talks about staying up late talking to a friend and the sun even calls him by name. On the other hand, the sun, the most invariable facet of life on earth, is the focus of the poem. Such a juxtaposition of the quintessentially eternal sun and the fleeting circumstance of a man is unquestionably beautiful by any definition, especially Baudellaire’s.