THE COLLECTED POEMS OF FRANK O'HARA
New York: Knopf, 1971. First edition. Cloth. Cloth with gold lettering in dust jacket; large 8vo. 586 pp. First edition, first issue (the Larry Rivers "suppressed") jacket. Edited by Donald Allen with an introduction by John Ashbery. This copy inscribed by Ashbery to Philip Charron on the rear flyleaf "In memory of our friend Frank. John Ashbery 4/30/84". Charron was a contemporary of O'Hara's from Worcester (O'Hara was from nearby Grafton, MA) and taught French at Deerfield Academy where Ashbery had gone prior to Harvard. As Charron writes below Ashbery's inscription the poet was in Deerfield to receive an award. Laid in among clippings are release forms from the publisher Knopf requesting permission to reprint from Philip Charron's diary for Brad Gooch's biography of O'Hara CITY POET: at the funeral of Frank's father Russell, Gooch quotes Charron, '"Kay looked in another world as she came in supported by Fran(k) '19-year-old Phil Charron wrote in his diary that day'... 'Very pitiful and poignant'". Charron's family was close enough to the O'Hara family that Philip Charron attended Frank O'Hara's father's funeral. There are a number of faults with an otherwise terrific item: there are five check marks in ink in the indexes linking to poems that are outlined in ink (at least two referring to Worcester and family/father). Also, two clippings are taped to preliminary blank pages (not excessive and with no offsetting, although there is a light strip on the flyleaf verso); Charron has written his name, Deerfield Academy address and date in ink on the front flyleaf. The book was the winner of the National Book Award. Several related clippings laid in including an article on O'Hara by Peter Schjedahl. Despite faults an excellent association and signed copy (O'Hara died in 1966, so copies signed by him do not exist) of a monumental book in the preferred now iconic jacket (changed to a plain text cover after objections from the likes of library distributors who objected to the explicit Rivers' portrait). A good to very good copy in an easily very good, complete (not price-clipped) dust jacket. Very good / very good +. Item #16195
Price: $2,500.00