Strangers to Us All Lawyers and Poetry

John Myers O'Hara

(1870-1944)
Illinois & New York

"O'Hara, John Meyers.— . . . . Born at Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 1870, and graduated at St. Ignatius College, Chicago, afterwards studying law at the North Western University, Illinois. He was admitted to the Bar in June, 1892. Many of his poems have appeared in the Chicago Citizen." [Source: D. J. O'Donoghue, The Poets of Ireland: A Biographical and Bibliographical Dictionary of Irish Writers of English Verse 356 (Dublin: Hodges Figgis & Co.; London: Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press, 1912)(Gale Research Co., reprint 1968)]

O'Hara practiced law in Chicago for 12 years and then moved to New York where he became a Wall Street stockbroker. [Source: "A Bibliographical Dictionary of Poets," in William Stanley Braithwaite (ed.), Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1926: And Yearbook of American Poetry 30 (Boston: B.J. Brimmer Co., 1926)(Dictionary at pp. 1-43, separate pagination)]

Poetry

John Myers O'Hara, Twilight Songs (Chicago: [s.n.], 1893)

_______________, Sonnets and Other Poems (Chicago: Mayer & Miller, 1895)

_______________, At Erato's Fane (Chicago: Mayer & Miller, 1897)(1898)

_______________, Songs of the Open (Portland, Maine: Smith & Sale, 1909)

_______________, Pagan Sonnets (Portland, Maine: Smith & Sale, 1910)(1913)(1930)

_______________, Manhattan (Portland, Maine: Smith & Sale, 1915)

_______________, Threnodies (Portland, Maine: Smith & Sale, 1918) [online text]

_______________, Embers (Portland, Maine: Smith & Sale, 1921) [online text]

Translations

John Myers O'Hara, The Poems of Sappho: An Interpretative Rendition into English (Chicago: privately printed, 1907)(Portland, Maine: Smith & Sale, 1907) [online text]

Léon Laviaux, The Ebon Muse, and Other Poems (Portland, Maine: Smith & Sale, 1914)

Paul de Saint-Victor, Men and Gods (Portland, Maine: Smith and Sale, 1925)

John Myers O'Hara, Roses of Persephone (Portland, Maine: Smith and Sale 1926)

José-Maria de Heredia, The Trophies, with Other Sonnets (New York: The John Day Company, 1929)(John Myers O'Hara & John Hervey trans.)

_______________, Hellas the Immortal (Portand, Maine: Smith and Sale 1932)(trans. of Ernest Renan, "Prayer on the Acropolis"; Charles Maurras, "Athens"; Maurice Barrès, "Sparta"; Jacques de Lacretelle, "Delos")

Research Resources

John Myers O'Hara Papers
Newberry Library
Chicago, Illinois
[Correspondence, 1910-1942, mainly from Sara Teasdale, 1908-1914 (263 letters), and manuscript copies of John Myers O'Hara's works, 1935-1943]

Obituary
New York Times
Nov. 17, 1944