Book Review: Also A Poet

by Ada Calhoun

Ada Calhoun, author and ghost-writer, is the daughter of poet and art critic Peter Schjeldahl and actor Brooke Alderson. Ada changed her name in 1998 by dropping her father’s renowned surname.

Also A Poet is an artful braid; the story of Ada Calhoun’s challenged relationship with a father who loved her while simultaneously neglecting her needs—a father she loved and couldn’t reach. It is also an honorarium to the dead poet Frank O’Hara, who was, for father and daughter, a kind of intellectual glue they could adhere to in order to stay close to each other. It is also a book about biography and non-fiction publishing. Some have called it a love triangle between Calhoun, Schjeldahl and O'Hara, the poet they both loved.

I went in hoping to learn about Frank O’Hara, who is a peripheral character in Ninth Street Women, a book that illuminates the lives of Elaine DeKooning, Grace Hartigan, Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell. Hartigan and O’Hara were inseparable for a time, so I met the man (although not the poet) filtered through Hartigan’s biographer Mary Gabriel. I had also read a dozen or so O’Hara poems and liked them enough that I wanted to know more.

If you know as little as I did about Frank O’Hara, Also A Poet will fill in some blanks. But unfortunately, Calhoun was unable to go as far as she had hoped. Like her father, she fails at becoming O’Hara’s biographer. And that is where memoir takes over. She draws parallels and takes a deeper look at why her father failed at biography (and many other things as well.)

She is bitingly harsh about her father and always tinged with interior pain. The book is angsty. I’ve known these art world types. Often, they are angst-ridden, tied up in their own dramas, so focused on the intellectual, the creative, the important, that they barely function in the everyday world. The scenes she describes are bizarre and humdrum at the same time. At times, Calhoun takes a superior tone, as though she has everything figured out. Given how she describes her upbringing this seems highly improbable.

It's a compelling read if you are interested in the East Village artistic scene between 1950-1980. It's a bit disappointing if you want to know more about O’Hara and his poetry. If you are a memoirist, you can study this remarkably crafted and structured book. Calhoun's is an impressive writer. Do celebrity mentions excite you? If so, Steve Martin, Edward Gorey, Larry Rivers, and Grace Hartigan make appearances. Given my experience with Also A Poet, I am eager to read her earlier book, St Mark’s is Dead.

Here are some tips to get the most out of Also A Poet:

• Read up on Peter Schjeldahl, both his lush poetry and his art criticism.

• Listen to the audiobook. There are many original recordings in it. These provide insights not possible on a printed page.

• Last month, during National Poetry Month, The New York Times produced an interactive piece about  Frank O’Hara’s poem “Having A Coke.” It's short in duration yet gives a feel for how O’Hara approached poetry.

• “Love & Bottle Rockets” is a piece in Art Forum by Jennifer Krasinski about the annual party Peter Schjeldahl and Brooke Alderson held for years. Calhoun describes it too. I enjoyed experiencing it from both perspectives.

• Know that when O’Hara was killed in a freak accident The New York Times ran the headline, “Exhibitions Aide at Modern Art Dies—Also a Poet.” O’Hara worked full time at MoMA and part-time as a poet. Calhoun will explain this to you, but it’s good to know this fact going in.

I enjoy this esoteric subgenre of non-fiction: the braided poetic memoir. During Q1, my favorite read was What is the Grass: My Life with Walt Whitman, written by poet Mark Doty. Later this year, I will get to These Fevered Days: 10 Pivotal Moments in the Life of Emily Dickenson, by Martha Ackmann. Please share any similar titles with me.

This review took me about a month to write. I needed to sit with this book, mull it over, see what stayed in my memory and what vanished. The book didn’t fill me with joy while reading it. But in hindsight, what Calhoun writes is honest, fascinating, bold, and worth writing down. I felt her many hurts and frustrations. She made me laugh out loud. It captures the zeitgeist of a time and place with perfection.