The Closet Professor

Steps
By Frank O’Hara

How funny you are today New York
like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime
and St. Bridget’s steeple leaning a little to the left
here I have just jumped out of a bed full of V-days
(I got tired of D-days) and blue you there still
accepts me foolish and free
all I want is a room up there
and you in it
and even the traffic halt so thick is a way
for people to rub up against each other
and when their surgical appliances lock
they stay together
for the rest of the day (what a day)
I go by to check a slide and I say
that painting’s not so blue

where’s Lana Turner
she’s out eating
and Garbo’s backstage at the Met
everyone’s taking their coat off
so they can show a rib-cage to the rib-watchers
and the park’s full of dancers and their tights and shoes
in little bags
who are often mistaken for worker-outers at the West Side Y
why not
the Pittsburgh Pirates shout because they won
and in a sense we’re all winning
we’re alive

the apartment was vacated by a gay couple
who moved to the country for fun
they moved a day too soon
even the stabbings are helping the population explosion
though in the wrong country
and all those liars have left the U N
the Seagram Building’s no longer rivalled in interest
not that we need liquor (we just like it)

and the little box is out on the sidewalk
next to the delicatessen
so the old man can sit on it and drink beer
and get knocked off it by his wife later in the day
while the sun is still shining

oh god it’s wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much

1961

About this Poem

“Steps” is from Lunch Poems, a book of poetry by Frank O’Hara published in 1964 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s City Lights, number 19 in their Pocket Poets series. The collection was commissioned by Ferlinghetti as early as 1959, but O’Hara delayed in completing it. Ferlinghetti would badger O’Hara with questions like, “How about lunch? I’m hungry.” “Cooking,” O’Hara would reply. O’Hara enlisted the help of Donald Allen who had published O’Hara’s poems in New American Poetry in 1960. Allen says in his introduction to The Collected Poems of Frank O’Hara, “Between 1960 and 1964 O’Hara and I worked intermittently at compiling Lunch Poems, which in the end became a selection of work dating from 1953 to 1964.”

The poems in this collection contain O’Hara’s characteristically breezy tone, containing spontaneous reactions to things happening in the moment. Like “Steps,” any of them appear to have been written on O’Hara’s lunch hour. The poems contain numerous references to pop culture and literary figures, New York locations, and O’Hara’s friends. One common theme is a desire for personal connection, whether the one-on-one connection of two friends or two lovers or a broader connection to strangers, in the face of tragedy, for example.

O’Hara’s “Steps” is an ode to New York City in the 1950s. It captures the city’s energy, diversity, and humor in a series of vivid vignettes. The poem walks the reader through various scenes in New York City and alludes to a wide variety of places and people. The poet begins by describing waking up and getting out of bed. This is followed by references to Lana Turner, Greta Garbo, and the Seagram Building.

O’Hara makes jumps between images that are sometimes hard to understand but that work to help readers interpret the ever-moving chaos of New York City that the poet cared so deeply for. The poem moves quickly from one image to the next, creating a sense of urgency and excitement. O’Hara uses everyday language and pop culture references to make the city feel both familiar and surreal. It also reflects the social changes of the time, as well as the city’s role as a hub of creativity and culture.

Compared to O’Hara’s other works, “Steps” is more optimistic and straightforward. It lacks the irony and darkness of some of his other poems and instead celebrates the simple joys of life in New York City. The poem’s brevity and lack of punctuation contribute to its sense of immediacy and spontaneity. The reader is pulled along by O’Hara’s enthusiasm, sharing in his experience of the city. “Steps” is a love letter to New York City, capturing its energy and beauty in a way that is both personal and universal.

About the Poet

Francis Russell “Frank” O’Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O’Hara became prominent in New York City’s art world. O’Hara is regarded as a leading figure in the New York School, an informal group of artists, writers, and musicians who drew inspiration from jazz, surrealism, abstract expressionism, action painting, and contemporary avant-garde art movements.

O’Hara’s poetry is personal in tone and content and has been described as sounding “like entries in a diary.” Poet and critic Mark Doty has said O’Hara’s poetry is “urbane, ironic, sometimes genuinely celebratory and often wildly funny” containing “material and associations alien to academic verse” such as “the camp icons of movie stars of the twenties and thirties, the daily landscape of social activity in Manhattan, jazz music, telephone calls from friends.” O’Hara’s writing sought to capture in his poetry the immediacy of life, feeling that poetry should be “between two persons instead of two pages.”