This paper focuses on the work of the poet/art critic John Yau, who in many ways draws on and extends the legacy of the poet/art critics of the New York School, in particular Frank O`Hara. A comparative reading of two such poems from the angle of "provocative spectatorship" illuminates not only the similarities between O`Hara and Yau but also the differences in aim, and of course cultural context. Yau`s manipulation of the elements of language goes beyond the quasi-diaristic "personalism" of O`Hara. Yau`s commitment to epistemological adventure, nevertheless, does not leave his predecessors behind, but rather supports his recuperation of the value of their work as art critics. Here the paper begins a two-tier trajectory for tracing and distilling Yau`s poetics. One tier is articulated through various moments in Yau`s defense of O`Hara`s writings on art against the canonical art critical tradition represented by Clement Greenberg and his disciples. The second tier explores resonances between Yau`s challenges to the presumptions of Greenbergian art criticism and Yau`s poetic response to moments of unglossed perception. The final focus in this initial inquiry into John Yau`s poetics concerns the profound degree to which his "situated knowledge" as a Chinese American informs his alienated scrutiny of the "medium cool" distance of pop art and postmodern celebration of surfaces. In delineating these aspects of John Yau`s work, I hope to show how John Yau`s poetics of looking operates on several levels and across several discourses at once, while maintaining an intellectual, aesthetic, and ethical integrity.