"The Day Lady Died" Frank O'Hara

This poem at first may seem like a bunch of mundane chain of events but in fact this is the very essence of the poem. This poem is his personal experience of the day Billie Holiday died, Billie Holiday was more times than often referred to as the lady who sung the blues she died in 1959 and Mal Waldron was her pianist for about three years before she died. Much of his poem is very factual about his day and you can tell by the way he starts off "It is 12:20 in New York a Friday" that he sort of wrote this poem on the go as if he had a napkin and scribbled down a couple of perspective notes. The poem seems like there is no point leading to nowhere but from the eyes of the poet every detail that is included is significant in telling the reader a story. The very end is where we see everything come into perspective

"and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it/

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of

leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT

while she whispered a song along the keyboard

to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing" 

        This is the very moment when he finds out that Billie Holiday died, after his long day of getting his shoe shined, going to the bank, going to the store we finally come full circle he sees the paper and he has a flashback of perhaps the first time he ever heard her sing. In the men's bathroom he can hear singing almost in a whisper and he stops breathing. For many the poem can seem unimportant but in the end it draws a common interest which is Billie Holiday as she had probably taken most peoples breathe away, anyone who was a fan probably can remember what they did the day they found out she died and that is what makes this poem so significant because it has a universal effect.