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Also a Poet
- A Memoir
- Narrated by: Ada Calhoun, Lili Taylor, Josephine Brill
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
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Publisher's summary
A staggering memoir from New York Times best-selling author Ada Calhoun tracing her fraught relationship with her father and their shared obsession with a great poet, featuring exclusive archival audio from literary and art world legends, living and dead.
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 40 years earlier.
As 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.
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. 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.
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.
About the Creator and Performer
Featured Article: Best of the Year—The 15 Best Bios and Memoirs of 2022
There are few stories more compelling or more intimately told than those soul-baring memoirs that seek not just to recount the experiences of one's own life, but to draw some greater commentary on the big existential questions. What does it mean to be human? What is our purpose in being here? How much of who we are is purely self-determined? Exceptional in both their prose and narration, these listens represent a few of the year's best memoirs.
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Story
When the nouveau riche Parker family moves to an exclusive community in the heart of Southern California, they believe it’s their chance at a fresh start. Heather Parker is determined to give her daughters the life she never had—starting with horses. She signs them up for riding lessons at Rancho Santa Fe Equestrian, where horses are a lifestyle. Heather becomes a “Barn Mom,” part of a group of wealthy women who hang at the stables, drink wine, and prepare their daughters for competition.
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Sort of ok story
- By Linda on 09-18-23
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The Other Side of Disappearing
- By: Kate Clayborn
- Narrated by: Wyeth Watts, Marnye Young
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Hairstylist Jess Greene has spent the last decade raising her younger half-sister, Tegan—and keeping a shocking secret. Ever since their reckless mother ran off with a boyfriend, Jess has been aware that he's the same accomplished con man who was the subject of a wildly popular podcast, The Last Con of Lynton Baltimore.
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Completely disappointing
- By JFE2201 on 05-13-24
By: Kate Clayborn
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Biography of X
- A Novel
- By: Catherine Lacey
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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When X—an iconoclastic artist and shape-shifter—falls dead in her office, her widow CM, wild with grief, hurls herself into writing X's biography. Though X was recognized as a crucial creative force of her era, she kept a tight grip on her life story. In CM's quest to unravel it, she opens a Pandora’s box of secrets and destruction. All the while, she immerses herself in the history of the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the country after World War II, as it is finally, in the present day, forced into an uneasy reunification.
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Worst book I’ve ever read
- By Rebecca on 11-09-23
By: Catherine Lacey
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Help Wanted
- A Novel
- By: Adelle Waldman
- Narrated by: Amanda Ronconi
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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When store manager Big Will announces he is leaving, the members of Movement spot an opportunity. If they play their cards right, one of them just might land a management job, with all the stability and possibility for advancement that that implies. The members of Team Movement―including a comedy-obsessed oddball who acts half his age, a young woman clinging on to her “cool kid” status from high school, and a college football hopeful trying to find a new path―band together to set a just-so-crazy-it-might-work plot in motion.
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I thought it was pretty boring
- By Jay Magure on 05-07-24
By: Adelle Waldman
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The Husbands
- A Novel
- By: Holly Gramazio
- Narrated by: Miranda Raison
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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When Lauren returns home to her flat in London late one night, she is greeted at the door by her husband, Michael. There’s only one problem—she’s not married. She’s never seen this man before in her life. But according to her friends, her much-improved decor, and the photos on her phone, they’ve been together for years.
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All the husbands!
- By Cheri on 04-08-24
By: Holly Gramazio
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A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
- In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Phylicia Rashad, Nick Offerman, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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For the last 20 years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.
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An innovative and fresh listening experience
- By Scott Garrioch on 01-14-21
By: George Saunders
What listeners say about Also a Poet
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Sonia Y Zurita
- 10-04-23
Unique, Gripping
Ada succeeded in creating a unique piece of literature. All stories intertwined, holding one’s attention. This book was made to be listened to because of the recordings though I also have a hard-copy to read to fully understand the recordings.
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- C. FREEMAN
- 12-04-22
Gonna teach this
I teach a nonfiction gen ed class. This is going in! So interesting and well done
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1 person found this helpful
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- R. Bhatt
- 08-15-22
Audible shines!
This is great book but it’s made even better by the audiobook format. The interviews which provide the structure of this book would not be same without the actual voices which we hear here. This book has opened so many directions for me - Frank O’Hara but also the bigger New York literary scene. Thank you!
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2 people found this helpful
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- JP
- 12-14-22
one of the best audible listens of all time?
why would you read this when you can listen to Ada share her wonderful story and include the tapes and original recordings. I appreciate masterfully she threaded the various parts of this narrative together. Chapter 26 about her feelings about being a writer and never living up to her father reverberated (even though neither of my parents are writers, or even readers for that matter, I think so many of us can relate to all the what ifs of how we fantasize we could be better). What a special memoir that deserves to be celebrated!
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1 person found this helpful
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- FR
- 04-20-23
Profound
Overall: if it spikes your attention, read it! Some parts became tedious as the depiction of bohemian New York boomers wasn’t particularly interesting to me. Towards the end, the book goes deeper into the complexity of a father- daughter relationship. It’s a profound and beautiful book.
4/5 stars for performance because I really had trouble understanding the audio of the original tapes used
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-08-22
It won me over!
This book won me over! I was interested in the poet O’Hara and in the inspiring Peter Schjeldal and ended up admiring the latter’s daughter and author of this book Ada more than the two combined. What an amazing book this is, and the audio version with all the tapes from the past is such a kick, congratulations Ada!!!
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5 people found this helpful
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- Lyn Relph
- 02-28-23
Merging vooices
Calhoun manages to combine her father's taped interviews with her own narrative of a complicated relationship with her father and his gang of New York celebrities. I loved it even though I couldn't hear some of the voices clearly .
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- teresa naomai
- 03-21-24
The personal ness
I liked the development of the daughter/ father relationship. The ebbs and flow and respect were always apparent.
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- Anonymous User
- 06-25-22
Left me in tears
I love Frank O'Hara. I love Ada Calhoun. What a gorgeous meditation on art, family, and literary fame. Thank you, Ada, for once again bringing us another searching, honest, and potent book. May we have more Frank O'Haras and more Adas in this world.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 07-24-22
Listened straight thru- then replayed next day!
Ms. Ada Calhoun:
Can not speak high enough of both you & your fathers contribution. In the audible edition, most quotations are in fact original recordings from 1977 / 1978 discovered in the basement storage or Ada's parents NYC brownstone. As a struggling author and poet myself struggling 20+ year with mental health, addiction, relationships & general recklessness, this story found me at the right time. It displays the bohemian and New York School culture into vivid focus like the warm saturations of a timepiece cinematography. And the personal connections of those involved in its making validates its existence. Thank you Ada. -Benji from St. Pete, FL.
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2 people found this helpful