Frank O'Hara - Lines For The Fortune Cookies

[angabel.livejournal.com]

Lines For The Fortune Cookies

I think you're wonderful and so does everyone else.

Just as Jackie Kennedy has a baby boy, so will you--even bigger.

You will meet a tall beautiful blonde stranger, and you will not say hello.

You will take a long trip and you will be very happy, though alone.

You will marry the first person who tells you your eyes are like scrambled eggs.

In the beginning there was YOU--there will always be YOU, I guess.

You will write a great play and it will run for three performances.

Please phone The Village Voice immediately: they want to interview you.

Roger L. Stevens and Kermit Bloomgarden have their eyes on you.

Relax a little; one of your most celebrated nervous tics will be your undoing.

Your first volume of poetry will be published as soon as you finish it.

You may be a hit uptown, but downtown you're legendary!

Your walk has a musical quality which will bring you fame and fortune.

You will eat cake.

Who do you think you are, anyway? Jo Van Fleet?

You think your life is like Pirandello, but it's really like O'Neill.

A few dance lessons with James Waring and who knows? Maybe something will happen.

That's not a run in your stocking, it's a hand on your leg.

I realize you've lived in France, but that doesn't mean you know EVERYTHING!

You should wear white more often--it becomes you.

The next person to speak to you will have a very intriquing proposal to make.

A lot of people in this room wish they were you.

Have you been to Mike Goldberg's show? Al Leslie's? Lee Krasner's?

At times, your disinterestedness may seem insincere, to strangers.

Now that the election's over, what are you going to do with yourself?

You are a prisoner in a croissant factory and you love it.

You eat meat. Why do you eat meat?

Beyond the horizon there is a vale of gloom.

You too could be Premier of France, if only ... if only...

-Frank O'Hara



I left a message on silverflurry's livejournal but it seems like he/she has been taking a leave of livejournal. Is there another mod for this community? Does this community even have a mod currently?

Comments

[arielblue.livejournal.com]

Hah! That's great. I love O'Hara -- I need to read more of him.

[angabel.livejournal.com]

I use plagiarist.com

-Ang

[shibaiko.livejournal.com]

I think frank o'hara is my favorite thing about this community.

[moireach.livejournal.com]

Every time I read this poem I want to start a fortune cookie company just so I can use these. ;)

I still think my favorite O'Hara poem is "Steps," though.

[bioproject.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I love frank o'hara--and this poem. I think it was this time last year when I finished his selected.

Also, I think we need a mod, just so we can screen out things that are really, obviously Norton anthology poems--then again, maybe not because it's always sorta fun to see somebody discover something like "one art" for the first time.

[angabel.livejournal.com]

I think sometimes it's great to read those kind of poems again. Mostly what bothers me is the double-posting. This community also seems to go on "kicks": we had a Plath/Sexton kick, and I think we're on an O'Hara kick right now. I think that's wonderful, but wonder if something more can be done: for instance, we can introduce the poet? And have some sort of a little theme for a month or whatever. This would require a mod... I might make a post in a week or so not cutting the mod bit, as I think there could be a mod who just didn't see this. And to make sure the same poems aren't posted. I figure, I haven't been here for that long, and so if I read a poem that I remember reading here, it probably shouldn't be re-posted unless it's just that good. And maybe even a memories section could be put up with posts in it, by author. That way if someone happens to discover a poet, they can go read what members have posted and then post their own. That would require a mod.

I think this group, overall, is best without a mod who gets too into things, as it's pretty much run by itself. Not many days go by without someone going, "Ah, I should post something." I wish we had some sort of back-up so that there would always be at least a poem posted a day, because I think it's good for the soul.

I'm new to Frank O'Hara and I like him very much. As soon as I get a job, I'll be ordering one of his books. This particular poem tickled me because some of the fortunes are dead-on what I wish I could say to people.

-Ang

[simpletwice.livejournal.com]

This group has at least one active moderator, as non-poetry posts disappear pretty quickly.

I was thinking earlier that it would be pretty great if we could get this community switched over to a tag-enabled style. Then we could tag each poem with the author's name & voila! an instant record of which poems have been posted before by your favorite poet, and when.

[angabel.livejournal.com]

That's an even better idea. I forgot about the tags. (goes to make a post to alert the mod of the discussion going on here)

-Ang

[petticoatlane.livejournal.com]

I've only been around here for a little while myself, but I'm with you guys there, the tag system would be pretty neat & helpful.

[greenstorm.livejournal.com]

There's only been one time that I've been vaguely annoyed that a poem was reposted so often, and I'm fine skipping when that occurs. There are a lot of poems I specifically like to see re-posted, it's like meeting friends in the street. It's really hard to find old poems on here -- I guess with the new tag feature it'll be less so -- but I like the element of randomness to a poem that I may have forgotten existed, but that I'm familiar with, coming by,

Speaking as a mod...

[3g0.livejournal.com]

I think this group, overall, is best without a mod who gets too into things

This is pretty much the way that the community maintainer wants things. As such, the "theme" by month would be enforcing a structure in the community that isn't what the community is meant to be -- primarily a place for people to post poems that they enjoy.

Part of the reason why the community seems to have "kicks" is because someone will post a poem that quite a few readers enjoy, so readers then seek the poet out and find additional poems to post.

I believe that is part of the idea behind this community; it is not meant to be overly academic or strongly moderated...given the traffic that we receive, we would need several moderators to pull the load if additional structure were introduced. I also am not in support of a rule regarding not re-posting poems. Our members list is at 1200+ people; people add and drop every day, and on average, this community gets at least 10 posts per day. It would be impossible for people to be expected to review posts before they put up a poem that they enjoy.

I will speak with the maintainer about activating tags -- I personally think that's a sound idea for organization that relies on the members. I've often gone to bookmark or "memorize" a poem after it has been posted, only to have to dig through several day's postings to find it again. Both of us want the community to be largely self-sufficient though, so creating huge "memories" banks is really not an efficient structure for us at the moment, simply because this is a high-traffic place, and we don't have the time to closely monitor it several times per day in order to add every post to memories.

Again, I will speak to the maintainer, who rarely is on LJ at the moment. If she's in agreement regarding the tags system, I will turn them on. There may be one additional hurdle of paid time (I think tags are paid accounts only), in which case, if enough members want the tags system active, then it will be the member's responsibility to pony up the cost of keeping this community as a paid account.

Re: Speaking as a mod...

[angabel.livejournal.com]

What about people re-posting the same poem, right after it? Specifically: http://www.livejournal.com/community/greatpoets/1077834.html

And as I just looked, I realized you did respond to this post: http://www.livejournal.com/community/greatpoets/1081379.html

I am in favor of her being banned. She's a troll, and is going to cause nothing but trouble here.

Thank you. :)

-Ang

Re: Speaking as a mod...

[3g0.livejournal.com]

We'll deal with that person; in the future, email silverflurry or myself. I'll update the community userinfo with my email address as well. Battling it out in the comments thread will, as you can see, do little to accomplish anything besides demonstrating that there are several reliable people here to get a rise from, thus encouraging more trolling.

I will make a formal post on the community regarding the tags system once silverflurry and I have our discussion.

Thanks for pointing out the problems!

Re: Speaking as a mod...

[mumblemutter.livejournal.com]

I think tags are paid accounts only

No, they just require a switch to the S2 style system.

http://www.livejournal.com/support/faq.bml?cat=tags (http://www.livejournal.com/support/faq.bml?cat=tags)
http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=230 (http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=230)

I think it would be great if the community could tag posts, but mods would probably be needed to make sure that things get tagged in a uniform manner, as having to wade through 'T.S. Eliot', 'TS Eliot' and 'Eliot' tags, for example, to find all related posts would kind of defeat the purpose.

Re: Speaking as a mod...

[coyotecult.livejournal.com]

By default, members who aren't mods can only use tags that are predefined and existing. That might help or hinder this idea.

Re: Speaking as a mod...

[angabel.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't that help? Then they set the way the tags read, if it's just the last name of the author or what.

-Ang

Re: Speaking as a mod...

[coyotecult.livejournal.com]

Definitely, but there are SO MANY POETS! So if someone posted a new poet who didn't have a tag yet, a mod would have to make a new tag for them. Not too horrible a fate, although they might need another mod or two if the load was too much.

I guess we could help and come up with a list of all the poets to be posted in the past couple months?

--Coyote

Re: Speaking as a mod...

[3g0.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was planning on referring to choriamb's list of poets that they sent that columnist who implied there were only six well-known poets to create an initial tag load. That list had something like 400 poets.

As usual

[coyotecult.livejournal.com]

You are full of AWESOME.

Re: Speaking as a mod...

[3g0.livejournal.com]

Since the tag system for a community has to be pre-defined, we will set up a rigid structure of categorization for this. Again, I am conferring with the maintainer to develop this idea, and will let the members know when we're ready to start it.