In honour of Frank O'Hara, that most collaborative and collegial of American poets, Dr Rona Cran organised a celebratory event at the Birmingham and Midland Institute.
In honour of Frank O’Hara, that most collaborative and collegial of American poets, the Birmingham and Midland Institute hosted to a celebratory event on Wednesday 3 May 2017.
Organised by Dr Rona Cran, in collaboration with the B&MI, the Centre for Contemporary Literature and Culture, the Birmingham Conservatoire, University College London, and a wide range of willing participants who each read a poem aloud, the evening was designed to evoke and pay tribute to O’Hara’s warmth as a person and depth as a poet.
Matthew Holman, from UCL, delivered an insightful overview of O’Hara’s Meditations in an Emergency. The collection was then read aloud, each poem in its entirety by a different audience member, all of whom embraced the spontaneity that such reading requires.
And as the poetry distilled, two students from the Birmingham Conservatoire performed a stunning recital of Rachmaninov’s Cello Sonata in G Minor. O’Hara loved Rachmaninov, and was a pianist himself – so this was a wonderful end to the evening. Thank you to all involved.
