Literary Analysis of Poem

Poem (Lana Turner has collapsed) by Frank O’ Hara is about the speaker describing what they were doing the moment news broke out of actress Lana Turner collapsing. At first, the poem came across as unusual since I’m used to poems being hard to read and having an extremely deep meaning. It made me feel lost at first since the poem was rushed and had no punctuation but eventually, I got the feel of a someone who is gossiping about the latest mainstream celebrity news. O’ Hara uses literary devices such as simile, imagery, tone, and setting to convey the feel of the poem for the audience and to bring up pop/celebrity culture to show how much people and media invests in it.

The poem has many themes such as pop and celebrity culture. O’ Hara confirms just how popular celebrities are when he wishes “oh Lana Turner we love you get up.” Lana Turner collapsing made headlines which shows the popularity of pop culture among people. To convey this, tone is used so the reader can feel if the poem is happy or serious. The tone of this poem is almost disappointed. O’ Hara has “been to lots of parties and acted perfectly disgraceful but I never actually collapsed.” It’s as if he is saying that he’s done things worse than her, yet he is still standing. O’ Hara also uses simile to convey the urgency of the news of Lana Turner collapsing when he writes “I was in such a hurry to meet you but the traffic was acting exactly like the sky.” It was raining and snowing but O’ Hara tried to get to his destination as soon as possible to talk about Lana Turner. Lastly, personification is used in the poem. O’ Hara personified hail when he goes to meet someone who “said it was hailing but hailing hits you on the head hard so it was really snowing and raining.” This can mean how people over exaggerate certain things. Poemis “certainly an important precursor to the recent flood of poems that reflect on celebrity culture and media [of the time O’ Hara is from]” (Epstain). In short, to convey the message O’ Hara used literary elements to convey how celebrities and pop culture is viewed. In the public, sometimes celebrities are mocked, or certain events are exaggerated to make headlines and get attention.

Works Cited

• “‘Lana Faints; In Hospital’: A Visual Footnote for Frank O’Hara’s ‘Poem (Lana Turner Has Collapsed)”.” Locus Solus: The New York School of Poets, 9 Mar. 2014, newyorkschoolpoets.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/a-visual-footnote-for-frank-oharas-poem-lana-turner-has-collapsed/.

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.