Dionysian Myth in Two Poems by Frank O'Hara

The Apollonian and Dionysian Framework

Poetry has traditionally been the realm where the Dionysian myth, as defined in opposition to the Apollonian myth, is able to reign free, effectively embracing the sort of chaos and formlessness that has traditionally defined Dionysus. At the same time, it is very difficult to isolate the Dionysian qualities of a poem from the Apollonian qualities, as we rely on the difference between the two as definitional factors in each; in order for true poetry to occur, one needs the Apollonian to give form and temperance to the wildness of the Dionysian. Still, in the following essay, we will attempt to read two poems by Frank O'Hara — "Poem" and "Homosexuality" — from a purely Dionysian standpoint, even though an Apollonian reading of the poems may also be elicited.

Before we begin, a word about those qualities typically considered to be "Dionysian." Michael Thro has used the following themes in his delineation of the Dionysus myth: earth, id, eros, Epicurean, heart, emotion, feeling, chaos, excess, female, equality, art, spontaneity, impulsiveness, country, romanticism, and nature. In other words, Dionysus is the polar opposite of everything the Apollonian is meant to represent — sun, ego, psyche, stoic, and so on. In her psychoanalytic study of the Apollo and Dionysus myths, Helene Deutsch characterized Dionysus as follows: "His ability to perform miracles and to personify whatever the situation calls for, on the one hand, and his ferocity and amorality, on the other, place him outside the mortals' conception of good and bad." Thus, Dionysus must be considered outside conventional notions of good and evil, an argument that Nietzsche also supported in The Birth of Tragedy. Dionysus is ultimately about indulgence, about giving into pleasure and letting go of all obligations while feeling no guilt whatsoever about it. Based on these qualities, it is not difficult to see that Frank O'Hara was a most Dionysian poet.

Dionysian Qualities in O'Hara's 'Poem'

Frank O'Hara's "Poem," one of a handful of untitled poems dashed off in the course of his brief yet prolific career, is short enough to be quoted here in full:

Green things are flowers too
And we desire them more than George Sand's blue rose not
That we don't shun poison oak

The poem's immediate concern is with the establishment of a visual image derived from nature — that of the flower, a classical poetic motif. But O'Hara's first line is decidedly unflowery; instead, it is rather playful in its tone and construction: "Green things are flowers too." What are the other "green things" that the poet was referring to or thinking of before the poem began — those green things that announce their presence by the inclusion of the word "too" at the end of the line? Could it be the poison oak mentioned in the last line?

"Poem" is about desire in a purely aesthetic sense. It is Dionysian not only in this embrace of desire and the aesthetic, but in that it does not fear embracing the irrational or the absurd in rendering a work of art. The poet states that we desire flowers more than George Sand's blue rose — in other words, a blue rose is not a flower? The poem does not really make any logical, Apollonian sense, and that is exactly O'Hara's point. A classical, romantic nature poem about flowers might attempt to elaborate on the qualities of the blue rose via metaphor, thus allowing the Apollonian to temper the Dionysian impulses of the poem. But O'Hara will have none of it. Other than stating that the blue rose belongs to George Sand, the famous nineteenth-century French writer, we do not learn anything else about flowers — only what they are not: poison oak.

Desire, Eros, and Nature in 'Homosexuality'

The second poem under examination, "Homosexuality," has a rather deceptive title, as the poem itself does not seem to have much to do with the subject of homosexuality — at least not as it has been constructed today. It is not until near the end of the poem that we begin to recognize that it is about, among other things, "cruising" — that is, searching for sex among men in public settings where gay men used to congregate prior to our more liberal era: "The good / love a park and the inept a railway station," O'Hara writes. The park is clearly preferable to a railway station, not only because it is more idyllic for the scene of an erotic encounter, but also because it is a Dionysian setting, preferable to the crude, structured, Apollonian setting of a railway station. In a park, one may readily lose oneself in the eroticism of nature and become one with the natural environment. This is surely preferable to lingering in the men's room of a railway station, "tallying up the merits of each / of the latrines," in O'Hara's words.

The poem clearly links the theme of homosexuality with Dionysus on an emotional level as well:

So we are taking off our masks, are we, and keeping
our mouths shut? As if we'd been pierced by a glance!

The song of an old cow is not more full
of judgment than the vapors which escape one's soul when one is sick;

so I pull the shadows around me like a puff
and crinkle my eyes as if at the most exquisite moment
of a very long opera, and then we are off!

A without reproach and without hope that our delicate feet
will touch the earth again, let alone "very soon."