Meditations In an Emergency Sales Surge After Mad Men Episode

Frank O'Hara's Meditations in an Emergency jumped to #3 on Amazon's list of most popular 20th Century American Poetry collections after being mentioned on the popular AMC show "Mad Men." My father watches Mad Men so I assume last night was his first taste of O'Hara's work (edit: Other than a few lines I read him while on a train outside Salzburg). We spoke about Mad Men one time. He told me it was "about [his] father's era" and "very depressing." The episode ended with a voice over reading the denouement of "Mayakovsky," the final poem in the collection.

"Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funy
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again."

Meditations in an Emergency is currently beating out The Rose that Grew from Concrete by Tupac Shakur and Frankenstein Takes the Cake by Adam Rex.

Link: Amazon Book Bestsellers: American 20th Century Poetry