FRANK LIMA
INCIDENTS OT TRAVEL IN POETRY
New and Selected Poems
edited by Garrett Caples and Julien Poirier
City Lights Publishers (January 12, 2016)
Protégé of Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, and Allen Ginsberg, Frank Lima (1939-2013) was the only Latino member of the New York School during its historical heyday. After enduring a difficult and violent childhood, he discovered poetry as an inmate of a juvenile drug treatment center under the tutelage of the painter, Sherman Drexler, who introduced him to his poet friends. After his poetry debut in the Evergreen Review in 1962, Lima appeared in key New York School anthologies and published two full-length collections of his own. In the late 1970s, Lima left the poetry world to pursue a successful career as a chef, though he returned intermittently and continued to write a poem a day until his death.
Incidents of Travel in Poetry is a landmark re-introduction to the work of this major Latino poet. Beginning with poems from Inventory (1964), his installment in the legendary Tibor de Nagy poetry series, Incidents includes selections from Lima's previous volumes, tracing his development from his early snapshots of street life to his later surrealist-influenced abstract lyricism. The bulk of the collection comes from his later unpublished manuscripts, and thus Incidents represents the full range of Lima's work for the very first time.
Born in Spanish Harlem in 1939, Frank Lima endured a difficult and violent childhood, discovering poetry as an inmate of the juvenile drug treatment center on North Brother Island in the East River, under the tutelage of the painter, Sherman Drexler. Through Drexler, Lima met Kenneth Koch, Frank O'Hara, and other members of the New York School of poets, leading to his first book, Inventory (Tibor de Nagy Editions, 1964). After publishing two further volumes, Underground with the Oriole (Dutton, 1971) and Angel: New Poems (Liveright, 1976), and earning an MFA at Columbia University in 1976, Lima withdrew from the poetry world, pursuing a successful career as a professional chef. A new and selected poems, also called Inventory (Hard Press), edited by David Shapiro, appeared in 1997. He continued to write a poem a day, but seldom published, for the rest of his life. He died in 2013.
INCIDENTS OT TRAVEL IN POETRY
New and Selected Poems
edited by Garrett Caples and Julien Poirier
City Lights Publishers (January 12, 2016)
Protégé of Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, and Allen Ginsberg, Frank Lima (1939-2013) was the only Latino member of the New York School during its historical heyday. After enduring a difficult and violent childhood, he discovered poetry as an inmate of a juvenile drug treatment center under the tutelage of the painter, Sherman Drexler, who introduced him to his poet friends. After his poetry debut in the Evergreen Review in 1962, Lima appeared in key New York School anthologies and published two full-length collections of his own. In the late 1970s, Lima left the poetry world to pursue a successful career as a chef, though he returned intermittently and continued to write a poem a day until his death.
Incidents of Travel in Poetry is a landmark re-introduction to the work of this major Latino poet. Beginning with poems from Inventory (1964), his installment in the legendary Tibor de Nagy poetry series, Incidents includes selections from Lima's previous volumes, tracing his development from his early snapshots of street life to his later surrealist-influenced abstract lyricism. The bulk of the collection comes from his later unpublished manuscripts, and thus Incidents represents the full range of Lima's work for the very first time.
Born in Spanish Harlem in 1939, Frank Lima endured a difficult and violent childhood, discovering poetry as an inmate of the juvenile drug treatment center on North Brother Island in the East River, under the tutelage of the painter, Sherman Drexler. Through Drexler, Lima met Kenneth Koch, Frank O'Hara, and other members of the New York School of poets, leading to his first book, Inventory (Tibor de Nagy Editions, 1964). After publishing two further volumes, Underground with the Oriole (Dutton, 1971) and Angel: New Poems (Liveright, 1976), and earning an MFA at Columbia University in 1976, Lima withdrew from the poetry world, pursuing a successful career as a professional chef. A new and selected poems, also called Inventory (Hard Press), edited by David Shapiro, appeared in 1997. He continued to write a poem a day, but seldom published, for the rest of his life. He died in 2013.
