Andrew Hardy Assignment 3

Frank O'Hara writes about the city and all that it can provide for humans. Rather than seeing it as an isolating world, he finds it to be enriching, a sign that “people do not totally regret life.” O'Hara's poem about the death of famous jazz singer Billie Holiday The Day The Lady Died uses urban imagery to create a frantic tone about life. His images veer off into nothingness (literal blank space) as if he's too busy to finish the thoughts and amidst the hustle and bustle of New York his teller (of which he only vaguely knows) is too preoccupied to look up his balance. He can drink and smoke and read parisian authors, but none of the frantic, desperate acts can bring back to him the life of a great jazz musician, or what she represents, the vitality of the city.

Human experience is as enigmatic as anything that we come across in our lives. It is understandable that art, which emulates and expresses the human condition is just as enigmatic. Amy Lowell, as a poet, understands this relationship between art and the artist. “Art is the desire of a man to express himself” Lowell writes, and sums up much of the fundamentals of literary criticism in ten words- how fitting for a poet. Life isolates you from everything, and much of life is spent trying to regain some of perceived connection. You can see this from Oedipus to the anime Neon Genesis Evangalion. It's something we discussed in our Socratic Seminar on Videotape, but it transcends any of these specific works. People create art to express themselves to an unfamiliar world.