In the reactionary words of John Updike after reading, "Poem (Lana Turner Collapsed!)", he claimed that This was Frank O'Hara at his "stupidest and emptiest." However, it is easily debatable as to exactly how Frank O'Hara was able to create a well-developed world and sense of character in his short poem about seemingly nothing. “Hara is able to create a rich sense of being that comments on a world outside of his poem. When the individual parts are taken as a whole, it propels the scene of the poem forward, saying something. something semi-original about the world of gossip in a unique way that relies on comparisons in the guise of poetic form: situation, setting, theme, tone, language, image, symbols and structure. is able to do this using vivid recall and careful word selection, rapid pacing and photographic detail, all thanks to the well-grounded spark plug of a speaker whose words are carefully chosen. Through this speaker, O'Hara is able to comment not only on his world, but also on himself, his celebrity, and the smallest details that divide and unite us as human beings in the modern world. Looking through the eyes and mouth of the speaker is the most important piece to unraveling the code of Frank O'Hara's "Poem (Lana Turner Has Collapsed!)." The main character of the poem (presumably a man) is an extremely distinguished individual. It is through his voice that the poem takes shape. He said straight away: “I was trotting and suddenly it started raining and snowing and you said it was hailing but the hail hits you hard on the head so it was really snowing and raining and I was in such a hurry to tell you meet but the "traffic behaved exactly like the sky"...... middle of paper...... the mundane events of daily life over the scandalous nature of celebrity headlines. Through the voice of his loudspeaker, he is able to smuggle a message of sameness and ordinary nature between ordinary people and those who live in idealized glory. The subtext of the final lines "but I never really broke down" and "Oh Lana Turner, we love you, get up" is almost condemning in its comparison, commenting in a way that seems to say "We know that life is hard, but the rest of us still have to get back up, and you can too. He is able to do this so powerfully using well thought out verbal imagery, a quick and experienced speaker who is able to express his train of thought through inventive use of structure. Next time you read a poem, take a moment to think about who is speaking to you and what exactly they are telling you (or painting) with their words..