In reckoning with her unique heritage, as well as providing new insights into the life of one of our most important poets, Calhoun offers a brave and hopeful meditation on parents and children, artistic ambition, and the complexities of what we leave behind.Īda Calhoun is the New York Times bestselling author of St. Also a Poet explores what happens when we want to do better than our parents, yet fear what that might cost us when we seek their approval, yet mistrust it. The result is a groundbreaking and kaleidoscopic memoir that weaves compelling literary history with a moving, honest, and tender story of a complicated father-daughter bond. When Ada Calhoun stumbled upon old cassette tapes of interviews her father, celebrated art critic Peter Schjeldahl, had conducted for his never-completed biography of poet Frank O’Hara, she set out to finish the book her father had started forty years earlier.Īs a lifelong O’Hara fan who grew up amid his bohemian cohort in the East Village, Calhoun thought the project would be easy, even fun, but the deeper she dove, the more she had to face not just O’Hara’s past, but also her father’s, and her own. About Also A PoetĪ staggering memoir from New York Times-bestselling author Ada Calhoun tracing her fraught relationship with her father and their shared obsession with a great poet

You can order a copy of Also A Poet by Ada Calhoun (to be published on June 14) at Magic City Books or online at. They will be in conversation on Tuesday July 12 at 7:00 pm in the Algonquin Room at Magic City Books. Joining Ada in conversation will be Magic City Books co-founder Jeff Martin. Magic City Books is proud to welcome Ada Calhoun for a free event to celebrate Also A Poet, her staggering memoir tracing her fraught relationship with her father and their shared obsession with a great poet.

Also a poet by ada calhoun