Excerpt

‘Mad Men’ Creator Matthew Weiner Reads Frank O’Hara’s poem about Lana Turner

The ‘Mad Men’ creator is a big fan of the New York School poet, citing O’Hara’s work as as spiritual kin to the TV series. Now Weiner gets a chance to read the poems aloud.

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner has made no secret of his love for Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems. With that in mind, Audible.com, Amazon’s audio book subsidiary, asked Weiner to record O’Hara’s enduring collection, which was first published in 1964.

In a statement released by Audible, Weiner said, “When I was asked to read Lunch Poems it scared me, because I love Frank O’Hara’s voice and didn’t want mine to get in the way. His work became a part of Mad Men not only as a touchstone of the period, but more importantly, it supported my emotional purpose for the show, which was to say that our inner lives are timeless. Getting a chance to live in his work this way by reading it out loud made me appreciate the joy and pain that he seems to effortlessly capture. Of course, as a writer, it is a gift to truly experience the construction of someone’s work this way and, as a person, it made me miss him and wish we could go and grab a bite.”

Here is Weiner reading O’Hara’s poem about Lana Turner, from 1962:

Here’s the text:

poets.org

Audible’s edition of Lunch Poems is available at audible.com.

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