In her latest book, Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me (Grove Atlantic, 2022), Ada Calhoun traces her fraught relationship with her father, New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl, and their shared obsession with the poet Frank O’Hara. The book features exclusive material from archival recordings of literary and art world legends, living and dead.
Having stumbled upon old cassette tapes of interviews her father had conducted for his never-completed biography of O’Hara, Calhoun set out to finish the book he had started 40 years earlier.
As a lifelong O’Hara fan who grew up amid his bohemian cohort in the East Village, she thought the project would be easy, even fun, but the deeper she dove, the more difficult it became: Calhoun had to confront not just O’Hara’s past, but also her father’s and her own.
The result is a kaleidoscopic memoir that weaves compelling literary history with the moving, honest, and tender story of a complicated father-daughter bond. In reckoning with her unique heritage, as well as providing new insights into the life of one of our most important poets, Calhoun has offered a brave and hopeful meditation on parents and children, artistic ambition, and the complexities of what we leave behind.
For the Reading, Ada Calhoun reads from Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me.
Music by Ryuichi Sakamoto
**Other audio:
Frank O’Hara reads Ode to Joy:
Frank O'Hara Reads His Poems
Episode 55: Adaptation with Cord Jefferson & Percival Everett
Episode 54: Prudence Peiffer
Episode 53: Two Poets in Conversation
Episode 52: A Chapter about Slime
Episode 51: Lost Objects: 50 Stories About the Things We Miss & Why They Matter
Episode 50: dublab: Live from NeueHouse
Episode 49: Tim Carpenter
Episode 48: Steven Heller
Episode 47: Bruce Adams
Episode 46: Darryl Pinckney's Literary Education
Episode 45: Nicole Rudick on Niki de Saint Phalle
Episode 44: Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Episode 43: Hua Hsu
Episode 42: Nick Drnaso
Episode 40: Alexandra Lange on America’s Malls
Episode 39: Ben Shattuck on Thoreau
Episode 38: Paul Morley on Tony Wilson
Episode 37: Mark Rozzo on Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward in 1960s L.A.
Episode 36: Dan Charnas on J Dilla
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