SOURCE: A review of Frank O'Hara: Poet among Painters, in Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, Vol. XX, No. 1, Winter, 1978, pp. 96–8.

In the following review of Frank O'Hara: Poet among Painters, Mazzard praises Perloff's explication of O'Hara's poetry, but finds fault in her academic perspective.

When the Musée National d'Art Moderne opened in “The Gas Factory” or “The Refinery,” the new Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou in Paris was the ideal structure for a retrospective on the Dadaist Marcel Duchamp. Far less suitable for the spirit of Frank O'Hara is Marjorie Perloff's Frank O'Hara: Poet among Painters. The book is neither a biography of the poet, for “versions of specific incidents [do] not always coincide,” nor an analysis of the myths surrounding the poet. “Interest has centered on the man rather than on the work,” and Perloff's intent “is to right the...