David Lehman

Associate curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Russell Ferguson He curated the exhibit “In Memory of My Feelings: Frank O’Hara and American Art,” (there’s also a companion book). Frank O’Hara was part of a small group of poets in New York City in the 1950s and 60s, influenced by the Abstract Expressionist painters of that time, including Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. O’Hara died in 1966 after being struck by a jeep. Also, poet David Lehman (“LEE-man”), author of “the Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets” (Anchor Books)

Poet David Lehman is the editor of “The Best American Poetry” and on the faculty of Bennington College and The New School. His new book of poems chronicles his attempt to write a poem a day. It’s called “The Daily Mirror: a journal in poetry.” (Scribner)

Lehman is the series editor of "The Best American Poetry." His new book "The Last Avant-Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets" (Doubleday) is a cultural history about a group of poets in the 1950s who he says helped to reinvent literature, like John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, and James Schuyler. They took their cue from the Abstract Expressionistic painters of the time who were also in New York.