He is both a poet and an art critic. An important combination. He reminds me a bit of another great poet, who early on became a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Frank O’Hara. Both were so important as poets and as members of the larger art world. I am speaking about the writer John Yau, and especially his collection titled Borrowed Love Poems.

In order to follow up on these poems, I have recently been re-reading several books on three of the artists. These include: Lucy Lippard’s book on Eva Hesse¹, Craig Burnett’s extended essay on Philip Guston: The Studio², and the tribute to Frank O’Hara, In Memory of My Feelings by Russell Ferguson³. On the surface, these three artists seem to have nothing in common: they are people of such a great variety of ages and backgrounds, aesthetics and motivations. Yet the insistence and determination that each exhibited in their life’s work, their struggles for acceptance, and their ultimate recognition are important examples of the lives of painters and poets.

Bowery Studio

“It is never
just matter

Smooth as the paper
holding them in its mouth

the circles float
in their circles of ink

Solace is found in sameness
as is the soul

should one cling
to such matter

and such matters
mean much to some

But the sum
is not all

The circles float
in their perfect mouths of ink

Where else am I
to store them

The windows have their own tasks
The sky brings its own table”⁴

In writing about Hesse’s watercolors, Yau speaks of circles that float and a table that is brought in by the sky. On the other hand, Guston’s table is like a rock: piles of shoes and pyramids, books like stale bread, and light bulbs inhabiting and surrounding this table top landscape. And finally, a tribute to a fellow poet: in remembrance of Frank O’Hara, Yau laments the careers of well-groomed curators and artists, where images reflected in their windows offer sights of real flesh and blood. From three very different perspectives, we realize these are indeed descriptions of an important and ongoing dialogue amongst contemporary poets and painters.

Studio Dream

“Your face is a shoe
or a pyramid

What do you do
with a bandaged rock

clogged with muck
tea kettle’s dented noggin

common clock
cracked with arrows

One is up or down
staring into book of stale bread

dotted slab and square cloud
Does the world move closer

when you scratch black lines
Bulb hangs its note above bed

Head and arms embrace dust
inside web

Did you want to join me on the sofa
watch my skull float out to sea

Old crust, stitched mitten
You’ve got a big empty head

but no place to cram it”⁵

Broadcast from 791 Broadway

“Salacious, broken-nosed, bantamweight
Animals don’t ring my doorbell
bring me cookies and champagne
biscuits as big as movie stars’ post-nuptial crumbs
I am not another image of the Buddha preaching
or the ornate clouds he manufactures
for those in need of eternal wisdom
I am not even his rapid flagship cousin
part nugget, part fly
I am a defection from the mind of an
Abyssinian
tram
quill
rising through the pages of the wall
and wind you surround yourself in
almost hard-headed enough to make an appearance at the Statue
of Librettists
because the Primogeniture Mink pleaded with me to grind for the
people of New York
and to squirt you with news of how powerfully afloat we feel in
Heaven
its many villas and huts copied from the terracotta model of
Manhattan
we carried into the snowy mountains of thought”

“Since I left you, American art has received
many stamps of approval
I was commissioned to design
by the School of Better Living Through Lusty Dancing and didn’t

Since I left you, smoother stools and life-like
cats are being peddled by
the curlicue gates of the Museum of Modern Fate

Since I left you, well-groomed curators
have learned how to store their robes and purr
without becoming overly philosophical, and artists
have stopped skinny-dipping in the reflections
carried past their windows on the shoulders of dead and dying poets
disgusted perhaps by the sight of real flesh and blood

Since I left you, many other curious celebrations have taken place”⁶

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¹ Lippard; Lucy; Eva Hesse; New York University Press; New York, New York; 1976.

² Burnett, Craig; Philip Guston: The Studio; Afterall Books; London, United Kingdom; 2014.

³ Ferguson, Russell; In Memory of My Feelings: Frank O’Hara and American Art; University of California Press; Berkkeley, Los Angeles, London; 1999.

⁴ Yau, John; Borrowed Love Poems; Penguin Books; New York, New York; 2002; p. 15.

⁵ Yau, John; Borrowed Love Poems; Penguin Books; New York, New York; 2002; p. 16.

⁶ Yau, John; Borrowed Love Poems; Penguin Books; New York, New York; 2002; pp. 17-18.