Poetry in BEASTLY: "Having a Coke with You" by Frank O'Hara

 

A traditional poem might be featured in a film, perhaps a sonnet by William Shakespeare or an elegy by W.H. Auden. But book sales and reputations of more modern poets sometimes benefit from placement of their poetry as an element in a movie.

Recently, poetry by Frank O’Hara has been the recipient of such publicity in popular media. His book of poems, Meditations in an Emergency, appeared prominently in the second season of a television series, Mad Men, and in Beastly—a new film offering a contemporary version of Beauty and the Beast—O’Hara’s poem, “Having a Coke With You,” plays a central role.

"Having a Coke with You"
    Frank O’Hara

    is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz,
         Bayonne
    or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
    partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier
         St. Sebastian
    partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for
         yoghurt
    partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
    partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and
         statuary
    it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything
         as still
    as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front
         of it
    in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
    between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

    and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
    you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

    I look
    at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in
         the world
    except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s
         in the Frick
    which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together
         the first time
    and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care
         of Futurism
    just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
    at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that
         used to wow me
    and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
    when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when
         the sun sank
    or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider
         as carefully
    as the horse

    it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
    which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you
         about it