"Yesterday Down at the Canal": Frank O"Hara's Use of Voice.
Perhaps the most vital element of a poem, is that of the voice evoked by the poet. .
When a poet uses "I" in a poem, it can mean any number of different people other than the .
poet themselves. The same holds true with the use of all other pronouns "we", "you" etc. .
Frank O"Hara beautifully demonstrates the important role of voice in his poem "Yesterday .
Down At the Canal" from his collection Lunch Poems. .
Frank O"Hara manipulates and changes the voice numerous times throughout the .
poem. He begins in the first two lines by evoking a satirical voice aimed at supercilious, .
melodramatic readers: "You say that everything is very simple and interesting/ it makes me .
feel very wistful like reading a great/ Russian novel does" (lns1-3). O"Hara tactfully uses the .
"you" here to indict over-sympathetic scholars reading his work. He made the deliberate .
choice of writing "you say" instead of a colon and making the next line begin with "it" --all .
affects aimed at making the reader pause or pay close attention to the voice in the poem.
O"Hara then shifts the voice to first person "I" in the second stanza. The first person .
perspective in the next stanza and up until the last line of the poem continues to embody the .
same satirical tone of the "you". He wants his reader to infer the satirical nature of the "I" as .
well from lines like line eight: "yak yak". Line eight negatively criticizes the type of person .
who says things like "everything is very simple and interesting" and "if you can't be .
interesting at least you can be a legend".
The careless reader sees the first "I" in the poem and instantly associates it with the .
poet's own direct voice. O"Hara doesn't actually add his own voice until the last line of the .
poem, marked by parentheses. The use of parentheses around this line gives the reader a .
feeling of intimacy with the poet, as if he were whispering his personal commentary in our .
