Studying Referentiality in Frank O'Hara's Poetry

While the jury is still out for this project, since there is much research that remains, I can highlight some trends. From the graphs I've shown, we can see that O'Hara is very concerned with Manhattan. He is very much a poet of place, New York, and specifically Manhattan. When he references something in or about New York, he is usually referencing something about Manhattan. We can also see that a large portion of O'Hara's references allude to artists, most often writers. And, though it is a small sample size, O'Hara writes in a foreign language in one third of his poems. If that trend continues with more research, that's an astounding percentage. There is one major trend that I am interested to see, also. There is no data, because my nine-poem sample didn't seem to show much, but I plan to measure the percentage of referentiality in poems that display so sort of discernable form. O'Hara seems to write in free verse mostly, but he does use tercets, quatrains, septets. As I gather more data, that theme will be revistited. There is much work left to be done with this research and website, but this is a start.