In Memory of My Feelings was published by the Museum in 1967 to honor its late curator. The book was edited by the poet Bill Berkson, who had been a close friend of O'Hara's and was then a guest editor in the Museum's Department of Publications. Berkson invited thirty artists who had known O'Hara, ranging from Willem de Kooning to Claes Oldenburg, from Joan Mitchell to Jasper Johns, to produce works to accompany his poems. The book was issued in a limited edition as a set of folded sheets held loose in a cloth-and-board folio that was itself contained in a slipcase. Now, for the first time, the Museum has republished In Memory of My Feelings in a conventionally bound edition, and with a newly designed paper jacket instead of a slipcase. In every other way, however, this book is an exact facsimile of the edition of 1967.
Between 1952. when Frank O'Hara published his first collection of poems, and his death, in 1966, at the early age of forty, he became recognized as a quintessential American poet whose vernacular phrasing, both worldly and lyrical, beautifully told of the urban life of his generation. In addition to the contribution he made to American literature, O'Hara was a vital figure in the New York cultural scene and spent many years working at The Museum of Modern Art, where, having begun by taking a job selling postcards on the admissions desk, he ultimately became an associate curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture. And when he unexpectedly died, in an accident on the beach at Fire Island, New York, he was deeply mourned by the Museum's staffand by the New York art world.
In Memory of My Feelings was published by the Museum in 1967 to honor its late curator. The book was edited by the poet Bill Berkson, who had been a close friend of O'Hara's and was then a guest editor in the Museum's Department of Publications. Berkson invited thirty artists who had known O'Hara, ranging from Willem de Kooning to Claes Oldenburg, from Joan Mitchell to Jasper Johns, to produce works to accompany his poems. The book was issued in a limited edition as a set of folded sheets held loose in a cloth-and-board folio that was itself contained in a slipcase. Now, for the first time, the Museum has republished In Memory of My Feelings in a conventionally bound edition, and with a newly designed paper jacket instead of a slipcase. In every other way, however, this book is an exact facsimile of the edition of 1967.
Reuben Nakian 1 Ann Arbor Variations (July 1951)
Alex Katz 2 Jane Awake (ca. 1951)
Alfred Leslie 3 Poem ("The eager note...") (February 1950)
Robert Motherwell 4 Poem to James Schuyler (ca. 1951)
Marisol 5 Chez Jane (September 1952)
Joe Brainard 6 Blocks (October 1952)
A1 Held 7 from Second Avenue (March-April 1953)
Roy Lichtenstein 8 Romanze, or The Music Students (October 1953)
Jane Wilson 9 Ode (June 18, I954)
Joan Mitchell 10 Meditations in an Emergency (June 25, 1954)
Elaine de Kooning 11 On the Way to the San Remo (July 1954)
John Button 12 Music (October 1954)
Niki de Saint Phalle 13 To the Film Industry in Crisis (November 15, 1955)
Barnett Newman 14 Sleeping on the Wing (December 29, 1955)
Jasper Johns 15 In Memory of My Feelings (June-July 1956)
Robert Rauschenberg 16 A Step Away from Them (August 16, 1956)
Willem de Kooning 17 Ode to Willem de Kooning (1957)
Philip Guston 18 Ode to Michael Goldberg('s Birth and Other Births) (February 1-3, 1958)
Claes Oldenburg 19 Image of the Buddha Preaching (June 3, 1959)
Grace Hartigan 20 The Day Lady Died (July 17, 1959)
Michael Goldberg 21 Rhapsody (July 30, 1959)
Matsumi Kanemitsu 22 Song (July 31, 1959)
Helen Frankenthaler 23 Poem ("Hate is only one of many responses...")(August 24, 1959)
Norman Bluhm 24 Naphtha (September 3, 1959)
Allan D'Arcangelo 25 Poem ("Khrushchev is coming on the right day...")(September 17, 1959)
Giorgio Cavallon 26 Variations on Pasternak's "Mein liebchen, was willst du noch mehr?" (September 16, 1959)
Nell Blaine 27 Poem to Donald M. Allen (October 27, 1959)
Jane Freilicher 28 Poem V (F) W (November 6, 1959)
Lee Krasner 29 Poem ("Light clarity avocado salad...")(December 5, 1959)
Larry Rivers 30 For the Chinese New Year & for Bill Berkson(February 2, 1961)