 Poetry: October 04, 2023 Issue [#12209] |
This week: Hart Crane Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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This is poetry from the minds and the hearts of poets on Writing.Com. The poems I am going to be exposing throughout this newsletter are ones that I have found to be, very visual, mood setting and uniquely done. Stormy Lady
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Fear
by Hart Crane
The host, he says that all is well
And the fire-wood glow is bright;
The food has a warm and tempting smell,-
But on the window licks the night.
Pile on the logs... Give me your hands,
Friends! No,- it is not fright...
But hold me... somewhere I heard demands...
And on the window licks the night.
The Great Western Plains
by Hart Crane
The little voices of the prairie dogs
Are tireless . . .
They will give three hurrahs
Alike to stage, equestrian, and pullman,
And all unstingingly as to the moon.
And Fifi's bows and poodle ease
Whirl by them centred on the lap
Of Lottie Honeydew, movie queen,
Toward lawyers and Nevada.
And how much more they cannot see!
Alas, there is so little time,
The world moves by so fast these days!
Burrowing in silk is not their way --
And yet they know the tomahawk.
Indeed, old memories come back to life;
Pathetic yelps have sometimes greeted
Noses pressed against the glass.
On July 21, 1899, Clarence Arthur Crane and his wife Grace welcomed Harold "Hart'' Crane into their family. The couple lived in Garrettsville, Ohio. While Crane was still young, Clarence became the owner of a large candy manufacturing company and moved his family to Cleveland. Crane's parents fought all the time leaving Crane with an unhappy childhood. The two eventually divorced. Crane started writing poetry at the age of thirteen. Crane dropped out of high school his junior year. When he turned seventeen he went to live with his mother on his grandfather's plantation in Cuba for a year. When Crane left his mothers and returned home he met Mrs. William Vaughn Moody, who encouraged him to continue his poetry.
In 1916 his first poem "C33" was published. Crane moved to New York. While living there he met Alfred Kreymborg and Maxwell Bodenheim. Crane dove into his writing and started a novel which he eventually gave up on. Crane worked as an associate editor for "The Pagan," for a bit. Still unsure of what he wanted to do with his life, Crane tried to enlist in the military, but he was rejected. After that he moved back to Cleveland and became a reporter for the Cleveland newspaper, "Plain Dealer." Not seeming to find a job he enjoyed, he moved on to several other little jobs before accepting a job in one of his father's candy stores. He worked for his father for a year, but the desire to write his poetry had him leave that job too. He published his poem "The Tambourine," in 1920.
In 1923 he left Cleveland once again for New York and lived in Greenwich Village. Crane then met Waldo Frank, who helped him find a job at J. Walter Thompson Advertising Company. This job was short lived also. Next he worked for Sweets Catalog Service. Eventually he met Otto Kahn who gave him a loan so he could focus on completing his poetry. In 1926 Crane traveled back to his mother's plantation to live and work on his writing. The plantation was destroyed by a hurricane in 1927 and Crane found himself back in New York. In 1930 the first edition of "The Bridge" was published. After that Crane worked for a short time for "Fortune" magazine. While working there he was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship. Crane then sailed for Mexico to start writing a Latin-American equivalent of "The Bridge."
Though Crane had several jobs over the past few years he was still unsure of his life and what he wanted to do. His drinking had become a major problem in his life. He battled with it and depression for several years. During this time he lived with friends and traveled back and forth from Cleveland, Cuba and New York. Never really finding peace. On April 27, 1932 just before noon, Harold "Hart" Crane committed suicide by jumping overboard on the "Orizaba." His body was never recovered.
To Brooklyn Bridge
by Hart Crane
How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull's wings shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty--
Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
As apparitional as sails that cross
Some page of figures to be filed away;
--Till elevators drop us from our day . . .
I think of cinemas, panoramic sleights
With multitudes bent toward some flashing scene
Never disclosed, but hastened to again,
Foretold to other eyes on the same screen;
And Thee, across the harbor, silver-paced
As though the sun took step of thee, yet left
Some motion ever unspent in thy stride,--
Implicitly thy freedom staying thee!
Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft
A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets,
Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,
A jest falls from the speechless caravan.
Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks,
A rip-tooth of the sky's acetylene;
All afternoon the cloud-flown derricks turn . . .
Thy cables breathe the North Atlantic still.
And obscure as that heaven of the Jews,
Thy guerdon . . . Accolade thou dost bestow
Of anonymity time cannot raise:
Vibrant reprieve and pardon thou dost show.
O harp and altar, of the fury fused,
(How could mere toil align thy choiring strings!)
Terrific threshold of the prophet's pledge,
Prayer of pariah, and the lover's cry,--
Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift
Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars,
Beading thy path--condense eternity:
And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.
Under thy shadow by the piers I waited;
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear.
The City's fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year . . .
O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies' dreaming sod,
Unto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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The winners of "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] are:
"Something In the Wind"
Something in the wind takes me to
another time, another place,
where tides seduced and skies were blue.
Something in the wind takes me to
the sandy shore where seagulls flew
and ocean breeze caressed my face.
Something in the wind takes me to
another time, another place.
"Barbados Dreaming on a Winter's Day for Stormy Lady "
On a winter’s day
In cold, dismal snowy DC
My thoughts often turn.
To Barbados.
And the three wonderful years
I spent serving my country.
In Barbados, and the Eastern Caribbean.
Recalling blissful days
Hanging out at the Hilton Hotel
With the love of my wife by my side.
Sunday brunch then hitting the beach.
Drinking rum sours while watching people
Frolicking in the Blue Sea.
Visiting my other islands
once a month
Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts,
St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Meeting political leaders
Liming with the locals.
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