On O’Hara’s Poem “To The Harbormaster”
I took this poem to be as if it were a personal letter from O’Hara to either God or to some other person out there (perhaps a person who is “unattainable”, as it were). After having read his essay, “Personism: A Manifesto”, it became clear to me that not only did he not believe in God (thus invalidating my first reaction to the poem), but also that this poem is indeed the perfect embodiment of his philosophy of Personism. That is to say, to make your poetry as if it were addressing one specific person, thus making it more personal, and perhaps more endearing.
As I’ve said, I feel that this poem is a letter explaining to some unknown person why O’Hara was unable to reach them. The first phrase of the poem, “I wanted to be sure to reach you; though my ship was on the way it got caught in some moorings.”, seems to say “I wanted to see you, but problems prevented me from doing so.” The next line, “I am always tying up and then deciding to depart,” tells me that he seems to blame himself for his inability to get to his sought-after person; every time he gets near to this person, he pulls away. The rest of the poem says to me that even though he may not completely understand his situation, that he accepts it as fate, and that he trusts and accepts whatever fate will throw at him, as he has tried his hardest in life.
This is what the poem has meant to me, although I certainly don’t doubt that there could be more (or, perhaps even less) meaning there.