also a poet frank o hara my father and me

But I do like this line that got left out: Let me see, looking now… Huh, I actually feel good about all these cuts. Though I haven’t actually looked at my cuts file (I keep one for every book) since I finished it. As for what was left out, there’s nothing I can’t stop thinking about, fortunately. Without those miserable, lonesome months, I don’t know that I’d have gotten it done. Without getting too into the weeds, were there any pieces of research or stories that didn’t make it into the book, but you still can’t stop thinking about?ĪC: Well, the silver lining of lockdown was that I suddenly had the time to spend many, many hours a day listening through all the old tapes and going through a ton of archival material. LL: I’m fascinated by the research process for this book–I can’t even imagine how you worked through all those years of recorded interviews and transcripts. So Also a Poet is about me trying to do the book and reckoning with my childhood and my father as I try and fail to do this thing I went in thinking was a lock. When I found his old interview tapes a few years ago I was sure (because I ghostwrite a lot and get called on often as a “fixer” and am generally obsessive and eager-to-please) that I could finish the book. Can you tell us a bit about how all these narrative threads connect?Īda Calhoun: Yes! My father tried to do a biography of his hero Frank O’Hara in the 1970s, when I was a baby. Lindsay Lynch: Also a Poet isn’t just a biography of Frank O’Hara, but also a memoir and a story of you, your father, and the NYC literary scene you were raised in. We hope to see you on the Plaza October 14 – 16!Īda Calhoun | Photo by Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet Our own Lindsay Lynch chatted with Ada about the book and her writing process ahead of her appearance at the Southern Festival of Books on October 14 at 12pm ( view the full schedule here). When Ada set out to finish the biography of poet Frank O’Hara that her father, celebrated art critic Peter Schjeldahl, had started forty years earlier, she came face to face with her father’s past, her own childhood, and the complexity of her family bonds. A literary obsession, a fraught father-daughter relationship, and a reckoning with the past make up Ada Calhoun’s moving and tender memoir, Also a Poet.

Also a poet frank o hara my father and me