美國詩人法蘭克奧哈拉於1959年至1961年寫了一系列的情詩給文生華倫。當奧哈拉仍深愛著華倫時，他的詩充滿了焦慮：對於當時同性戀壓迫的焦慮、對於時間稍縱即逝的焦慮，以及對於這段感情的焦慮。本論文以圈內人、稍縱即逝，以及情色三個互相呼應的主題為中心，詳細解讀奧哈拉寫給文生華倫的情詩，試圖一窺在二十世紀中葉的美國，奧哈拉的同性戀生活。當時男同性戀者不但被邊緣化，而且被恐同的社會視為性變態，在這樣歷史框架下，本文探討詩人奧哈拉為何以及如何用一個圈內人才懂的語言來表達他對文生華倫的愛；如何於詩中重塑稍縱即逝的愛情、幸福及性愛，如何將傳統及時行樂詩中「抓住今天！」的主題改寫成「正在抓住生命中的時時刻刻」；本文並且著重於詩中情慾歡愉的瞬間，分析奧哈拉如何讓性愛引領他至一個另外的世界。
導論主要介紹奧哈拉給文生華倫情詩的背景，特別回顧1950年代至1960年代同性戀所受到的壓迫。活在一個焦慮的年代，奧哈拉深感人們對於同性戀的敵意，並在他的作品〈同性戀〉一詩中，描寫身為同性戀者帶著面具的痛苦。他於1954年的這個愛情宣言：「在這世上，我只想要被愛。」不但說明了奧哈拉身為同性戀者尋求愛情的痛苦，同時也提前宣告了他和華倫在1959年至1961年的關係。
第一章探討奧哈拉為何以及如何秘密地曝露他對華倫的愛。身處於一個恐同的社會與文化，奧哈拉並不和社會大眾直接衝突；反而，他只想存活在這個社會。為了生存，奧哈拉知道他必須謹慎小心地隱藏他對華倫的愛。因此，幾乎在所有的文生華倫詩中，奧哈拉都使用了一種圈內人才會懂的語言Camp來傳達他對文生華倫強烈的情感。
第二章闡釋奧哈拉如何處理稍縱即逝的愛情及幸福，看奧哈拉於詩中如何改寫「及時行樂」的主題。在真實生活中，奧哈拉面對各式各樣的壓迫。本章藉由傳統及時行樂詩為反證，說明在他的詩中，奧哈拉是如何正在掌握生命中的時時刻刻。與其說「讓我們來及時行樂吧！」，奧哈拉早已實現及時行樂的精神，正在慶祝生命中的每一個當下。

第三章強調詩中情慾歡愉的瞬間。藉由惠特曼〈自我之歌〉第十一詩節為反證，說明惠特曼於該詩中將男性身體用來滿足自己的情色幻想。反觀奧哈拉於文生華倫詩中則捕捉情色歡愉的瞬間，將身體視為跳板，企圖跳至一個遙不可及的世界。
結論概述先前的討論，而後檢視這一系列情詩中的最後一首，發現當愛已成往事，詩中意境不再只限於圈內人所能理解，也不再有稍縱即逝的感覺，而情色歡愉亦一同消失。當這段感情結束，雖然奧哈拉可以免除部分焦慮的侵襲，取而代之的是無限的失落。奧哈拉再也無法感受到「焦慮的愉悅與愉悅的焦慮」。

Between 1959 and 1961, Frank O’Hara wrote a sequence of love poems to Vincent Warren. When O’Hara was in love with Warren, his love poems were hemmed around by anxieties: anxiety about the oppression of homosexuality, anxiety about the lapse of the fleeting moments, and anxiety about the end of the relationship. Revolving around three interconnecting topics—the esoteric, ephemeral and erotic—in O’Hara’s love poems, this thesis investigates these three detailed elements as a way of re-creating and re-conceptualizing a model of O’Hara’s gay life in mid-twentieth-century America. This thesis discusses, at a time when gay men were marginalized and treated as sexual perverts by the homophobic society, how and why O’Hara reveals his love to Vincent Warren in an esoteric way, how O’Hara re-creates the fleeting moments of love, happiness and sex and transforms the motif of “Seize the day!” into “seizing the day” in his gay carpe diem poetry, and finally focuses on the erotic moment and sees how O’Hara uses sexuality to transcend to another world.
Introduction presents the background of O’Hara’s love poems to Vincent Warren, historicizing the homosexual oppression in the 1950s and 1960s. Living at a time of inescapable anxiety, O’Hara senses the hostility against homosexuality and depicts the pain of gay men’s wearing the masks in New York in “Homosexuality,” in which his 1954 love manifesto that “I want to be wanted more than anything else in the world” not only voices his pain of being gay in search of a lover but also pre-dates his relationship with Warren between 1959 and 1961 (Collected Poems 182).
Chapter One discusses why and how O’Hara expresses his love to Vincent Warren in a secret way. When facing a homophobic society and culture, O’Hara does not choose to daringly confront the public; instead, he manages to survive in that homophobic society. In order to survive, O’Hara is aware that he needs to be careful and hide his love. Thus, in almost all of O’Hara’s love poems to Vincent Warren, the poet uses an esoteric language of camp to reveal his intense feelings to Vincent Warren and conceal the homosexual content from the heterosexual majority as we can see in “Having a Coke with You,” “Poem V (F) W,” and “St. Paul and All That.”
Chapter Two demonstrates how O’Hara deals with the fleeting moments of love and happiness and transforms the traditional carpe diem motif in his love poems to Vincent Warren. Facing polymorphous oppression in real life, O’Hara writes gay carpe diem poetry to stand against the flow of time; in a way, O’Hara is enacting the carpe diem spirit in the love poems. I use traditional carpe diem poetry as examples of antithesis to O’Hara’s gay carpe diem poetry. Instead of saying, “Let’s seize the day,” O’Hara is already celebrating the immediate present as we can see in “Personal Poem,” “Steps,” and “Sudden Snow.”
Chapter Three extracts the erotic moment from the ephemeral moments of pleasures. I use Whitman’s Section 11 of “Song of Myself” as an example of antithesis to O’Hara’s erotic poems and demonstrate that while Whitman celebrates the male body and sexuality in part to fulfill his erotic imagination, O’Hara uses the body as a sexual diving board to jump to a spiritual world. I argue that O’Hara attempts to capture and re-create the erotic moment of his jumping to the spiritual world and the subsequent falling back to the earth in the erotic love poems to Vincent Warren as we can see in “Poem [Twin spheres full of fur and noise],” “Poem ‘À la recherché d’ Gertrude Stein,’” “You Are Gorgeous and I’m Coming,” and “To You.”
Conclusion summarizes the previous discussion and examines the three elements again in the final break-up poem; indeed, “Poem [lost lost],” a poem written after the end of the relationship, is less esoteric, less ephemeral and less erotic. After the relationship ends, O’Hara, though free from certain anxieties, suffers from an immense sense of loss; his love poems lack the nourishment of love. O’Hara no longer feels the “anxious pleasures and pleasurable anxiety” when the relationship comes to an end (Collected Poems 406).

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