Frank O'Hara—A Man of the World and An Artist

Frank O'Hara is neither solely an artist nor solely a man of the world, he is both. Baudelaire defines an artist as "a specialist, a man tied to his palette" and a man of the world as "a man who understands the mysterious and legitimate reasons behind all its customs". O'Hara is obviously a specialist in poetry—an artist, as it is something he writes with absolute grace, fluidity, and incredible knowledge. It is in the content of his poems that readers can also discover his worldliness. One of the pieces titled "Poem" focuses on the subject of China and the Chinese people, a "mysterious race" which O'Hara evidently knows a lot about. In "A Step Away from Them" O'Hara writes about New York, a subject he knows very well and writes about frequently, but also includes references to many other worldly and slightly obscure people, for instance Jackson Pollock, Giulietta Masina and Federico Fellini, and Edwin Denby, demonstrating his own knowledge of world culture. New York is a constant in most of O'Hara's poetry, and regarding this great city one could call him an artist in Baudelaire's sense of the word.