New York School

The New York School was a loose circle of mid-century artists, poets, and musicians associated with experimental culture in New York.

John Ashbery: An American poet whose allusive, shifting poems became central to the New York School of poetry. His poems exemplify the circle’s playful, improvisational approach to language.
The Day Lady Died: A 1959 poem by Frank O'Hara that recounts an ordinary New York day before news of Billie Holiday’s death. Its city details and abrupt emotional turn capture O'Hara’s signature conversational style.
Cedar Tavern: A Manhattan bar frequented by artists and writers in the mid-twentieth century. It was a social meeting place for painters and poets associated with the school.
Black Mountain College: An experimental college in North Carolina that operated from 1933 to 1957 and joined arts education with communal life. Its institution-based community contrasts with the New York School’s dispersed urban networks.
Frank O'Hara: An American poet and art curator known for conversational verse and close ties to New York painters. His friendships and poems linked the poets’ circle to the city’s visual artists.
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: A 1975 poem by John Ashbery that reflects on Parmigianino’s painting of the same title. It shows how the school’s poetic experimentation could engage art history and perception.
Museum of Modern Art: A New York museum founded in 1929 to present modern and contemporary art. Its exhibitions helped establish the city’s postwar modern-art environment.
San Francisco Renaissance: A postwar literary and artistic movement centered on San Francisco and associated with experimental poetry. It offers a West Coast counterpart to New York’s postwar poetry circles.
Kenneth Koch: An American poet and teacher associated with the New York School of poetry. His comic, formally inventive poems helped define the poets’ shared sensibility.
The Bridge: A 1958 painting by Willem de Kooning composed of gestural marks and layered colors. Its energetic abstraction offers a painterly counterpart to the school’s improvisational writing.

Linked from 21 pages