Sam Ladkin is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Sussex, having taught previously at the universities of Sheffield, Cork, and Cambridge. He has published articles on Tom Raworth, Walt Whitman, Rob Halpern, amongst others, and is the co-editor of five collections of poetry and essays, most recently Against Value in the Arts & Education (2016).

• Preface: The Paragone of the New York School


• Introduction: New York School Mannerism


• 1: Sprezzatura: Diligent Negligence


• 2: Grace: 'Joyous irony in the tenderest pathos'


• 3: Agon: 'The energy of contradictory actions'


• 4: Figura Serpentinata: 'And now it is the serpent's turn'


• 5: Frank Speech: 'The living ought to be alive in every part'


• 6: Marvellous: 'Remember life's marvellous'


• Conclusion: 'Style at its highest ebb is personality'

Frank O'Hara's New York School and Mid-Century Mannerism offers a ground-breaking account of the poet Frank O'Hara and the extraordinary cultural blossoming O'Hara catalysed, namely the mid-century experimental and multi-disciplinary arts scene, the New York School.