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CHAPTER ONE

Alone and just seventeen years old, Harold Hart Crane moved to New York City from Cleveland, Ohio, in late December 1916. After years of passionate and sometimes public quarrels, in which love and hate were hard to distinguish, his parents had agreed to end their marriage. Grace and C. A. Crane separated in November; their divorce would be completed in the spring. During this period their only child tried simultaneously to separate himself from his parents and to mediate between them in their disputes, without particular success in either regard. Until his father's death in 1931 (one year before his own), Crane remained caught in the middle of their failed relationship, the continuing link and contested prize between two mutually mistrustful and hostile people.

The identity he forged for himself as a poet, his sense of vocation and purpose, even the name he used, emerged directly from the breakup of his parents' marriage. The Crane Company had a sales office in New York, through which Crane's parents could send him money and messages, but their son was really on his own. He told his parents he planned to enter Columbia College in the fall, and he hired private tutors to help him prepare. C. A. was dubious. "It really is the most unusual case I have ever heard of," he told his son in March 1917. "If you can do it, and accomplish good work, I will be surprised. But I am willing to be surprised." On that same day, March 29, Crane's mother wrote to congratulate him on the publication of a poem, "The Hive," in the Pagan. The poem was signed "Harold Crane." "In signing your name to your contributions & later to your books," Grace Hart Crane inquired, "do you intend to ignore your mother's side of the house entirely? That was the only thing I criticized about it. It seems to me that Hart or at least H. should come in some where--... How would `Hart Crane' be? No partiality there--You see I am already jealous, which is a sure sign I believe in your success." After the divorce was completed, Grace and her mother, Elizabeth Belden Hart, moved to New York to live with Hart. Then, in July, when Grace pressed C. A. for a reconciliation, they all returned home. But the reunion failed immediately. Rejected by C. A., Grace attempted to take her life by swallowing bichloride of mercury and required emergency medical treatment. Crane returned to New York alone and shaken, now more than ever closely allied with his mother. It is in a letter to his father on August 8 that he signs himself "Hart Crane" for the first time. That signature is rare in letters to his father. Grace and her family called him Hart from this point onward; to the Cranes he always remained Harold.

The New York Hart Crane discovered in the late 1910s was a city undergoing the social and economic changes that would make it the cultural center of American life in this century; and he reacted to it feverishly, fully identifying himself with that turbulent, grandiloquent place. Life in New York, he wrote in his first letter home to his father, "was a great shock, but a good tonic"; it promised to strengthen him by testing his capacity to respond emotionally and intellectually to the widest range of experience. "N. Y.," he reflects a little later, "is a series of exposures intense and rather savage which never would be quite as available in Cleveland etc." Over time, New York City became a key scene in Crane's poetry, a setting in which private passion and collective aspiration merge, commenting on each other. Even in "The Hive," the early poem that stirred his mother's jealousy, the metropolis suggests an image for the poet's heart:

Up the chasm-walls of my bleeding heart

Humanity pecks, claws, sobs, and climbs;

Up the inside, and over every part

Of the hive of the world that is my heart.

And of all the sowing, and all the tear-tendering,

And reaping, have mercy and love issued forth.

Mercy, white milk, and honey, gold love--

And I watch, and say, "These the anguish are worth."

This poem is juvenile work, but it is recognizably Crane's in its intricate, compressed syntax; its formal decorum and dignity; its exaggerated, expressionistic figures of speech; its earnestness and passion; and above all in its ethical concern with the "worth" of passion. Even as a teenager Crane was in possession of his distinctive verbal powers. What is more, he already had a vision of the human purposes--the aim of securing "mercy and love"--for which he would put those powers to use.

In New York Crane made friends quickly, as he always would. On his first visit, he was befriended by Carl Schmitt, a young painter and a family friend from Cleveland, who arranged a room for him and made sure he was fed. Until Schmitt stopped answering Crane's eager, daily knock on the studio door to preserve some time for his own work, he offered Crane an informal seminar in aesthetics, introducing him to the ideal of formal unity in the work of art, as achieved through a balance of opposing forces. (Crane describes this ideal, so important for his poetry on both technical and thematic levels, in a letter to his father on January 5, 1917.) Crane also became friends with Claire Spencer (another Clevelander and a fiction writer) and, after their marriage, with Claire's husband Harrison Smith (called Hal), who went on to a prominent career in New York publishing. Crane ate with the Smiths weekly and sometimes vacationed with them; they were the first in a series of married couples who adopted him, or to whom he attached himself, as if he were an orphaned child looking for a home. Patterned on Crane's volatile, instable bonds with his parents, these relationships repeatedly led (as this one did) to a furious scene in which he and his friends accused each other of behaving selfishly and betraying the friendship.

In 1918 Crane began writing to William Wright, a friend from high school and a fellow poet who married and went into business after attending Columbia. He and Wright continued to exchange letters intermittently until Crane's death, which makes this, apart from his letters to his father, the correspondence of Crane's that spans the longest period. To Crane, Wright was always a link to the comfortable middle-class Ohio of his youth, the representative of a conventional life that Crane might have chosen for himself, but did not. With amiable condescension, Crane tells his less sophisticated friend which poets to admire and why, providing a look at some of his earliest efforts to define himself as a poet. These letters to Wright are trusting and warm, but not especially intimate--in contrast to letters from the same period to George Bryan, another Cleveland friend, working as a salesman, with whom Crane corresponded frequently until a short time before Bryan married. These brief letters entreat Bryan to visit, declare his specialness to Crane, and refer to their times together in excited, somewhat veiled terms. Tinged with longing and a young man's loneliness, Crane's side of the correspondence suggests that, if he were not in love with Bryan, he yet expected from Bryan the intensity of response that a lover might.

After only a few meetings with his tutors, Crane's preparation for college ended before it really begun. He had attended high school only irregularly; now he would never be a student again. But his true education was in modern art and bohemian living, for which the curriculum was established by the little magazines, the small-circulation, precariously funded advance guard of new writing and thought. Crane's first exposure to Nietzsche, Joyce, and Eliot (and earlier writers and important influences like Donne, Rabelais, and Sterne) came through these magazines. He read them avidly, saw his poems published in them, and composed letters of opinion to their editors. Joseph Kling, editor of the Pagan, made Crane an assistant editor since he was so often in the office anyway, looking for conversation. Crane was also sponsored and indulged by the editors of the Little Review, Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap (who signed herself in print "jh"), above whose office on West 16th Street he rented a room in 1919. These contacts placed Crane, while still a teenager, at the center of American modernism, but they failed to provide him with a way to make a living. For a time, Crane worked as the advertising manager of the Little Review. It was a position without salary in which he would have failed utterly were it not for the ads C. A. faithfully bought for the Crane Company's chocolates and another taken out by one of Crane's new bohemian friends, formerly of the Ballets Russes. It read simply "Stanislaw Portapovitch--Maitre de Danse."

So Crane returned to Ohio in November 1919 to work for his father. C.A. Crane's business was "whizzing"; in time, with hard work, his son expected "to get a good share of it." At first Crane spoke optimistically of reconciling his literary ambition with the reality of America's "commercial aspect." This hope was encouraged by the example of Sherwood Anderson, who had worked in business in the Midwest before he published his book of linked stories Winesburg, Ohio--which Crane reviewed in the Pagan saying, "America should read this book on her knees." (Anderson wrote to Crane to praise his review; later, Crane followed Anderson's example and wrote to writers whose work he found and admired in little magazines.) In business Crane began humbly by selling Crane chocolates behind a counter in Akron during the Christmas rush. There was no rush on Crane's candies, however, and he spent most of his time reading European literature. He returned to Cleveland that winter, where he worked until fall, at which point he was sent to Washington, D. C., as a salesman. These trips led to lasting friendships with two gay men: an entertaining, erudite aesthete named Harry Candee, whom Crane met by chance in Akron, and Wilbur Underwood, a friend of Candee, who worked in the State Department in Washington. Yet Crane disliked his work intensely. It was clear that the Crane family business would merely be an obstacle to the life of art and love he wished to lead.

Crane lived that life at the end of the working day in his third-floor bedroom in the Hart family house on East 115th Street in Cleveland. This secluded, deeply personal space (he joked about it lovingly as his "tower room," his "sanctum de la tour") was decorated with prints by modern European artists and original pictures by his artist friends in Cleveland. Here Crane played Ravel's "Bolero" on the Victrola, imbibed Passover wines and bootleg "dago red," puffed on cigars filched from his father's supply at the office, pored over magazines and European books, drafted poems, and wrote a great many letters. Some of these letters were addressed to Matthew Josephson, a recent graduate of Columbia, savvy and urbane, who prompted Crane to read seventeenth-century English drama and poetry. But more often Crane sat down to write to Gorham Munson, a young man he had met in the office of the Pagan. Munson and Crane, two aspiring young writers, needed each other urgently for criticism, company, and support; a prolific correspondence ensued. In fact, Crane wrote more letters to Munson than to any person outside his family, and these include some of the most profound and entertaining letters he wrote.

Given this, the imbalance of intellectual power between the two friends is striking. "I looked up to Hart," Munson frankly recalled. In particular, he recognized that Crane was further advanced in the course of study recommended by the little magazines: "He had had a poem, `In Shadow,' in the Dec. 1917 Little Review, and he was better read in the new poets like Pound than I was." Munson, who wanted to write plays and poetry, soon made a reputation as an editor and critic, a sponsor and interpreter of contemporary writing. He published a critical study of Waldo Frank's work in 1922, and he introduced Crane to Frank, who became an important imaginative influence on Crane. But Munson himself never did. He brought out Crane's best not because he particularly challenged or stimulated him, but because he admired Crane, had time for Crane, and Crane trusted him. Munson allowed Crane to be himself, and Crane used his letters to Munson to discover who he wanted to become.

"You're too damned serious," Crane once complained to Munson, affectionately and fairly. There were temperamental differences between the two friends; and in time, resentments accumulated on both sides. These came to a head in March 1926 when Munson wrote an essay critical of the spiritual claims and direction of Crane's poetry (the essay appeared in Munson's Destinations: A Canvass of American Literature Since 1900), to which Crane responded, by letter, with a tough-minded defense of his preference for poetry over philosophical and theological systems of all kinds. By this point Munson had become a devoted follower of the Russian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff. Crane felt personally challenged and impugned by his old friend's new piety. Munson had turned out to be not only too serious, but serious about the wrong things. Back in the early 1920s, however, when they debated aesthetic principles and shared literary gossip by mail (sometimes daily, even twice daily, as if modern literature were late-breaking news), Munson was a vital intellectual companion for Crane, a friend in whom he could confide the joy and grief of his first serious love affair, and, with Josephson, one of the first readers of "My Grandmother's Love Letters," the first poem of Crane's maturity.

To Clarence Arthur Crane

308 East 15th Street / New York City / December 31, 1916

My Dear Father,

I have just been out for a long ride up Fifth Ave. on an omnibus. It is very cold but clear, and the marble facades of the marvelous mansions shone like crystal in the sun. Carl [Schmitt] has been very good to me, giving hours of his time to me, advising, helping me get a room, etc. The room I have now is a bit too small, so after my week is up, I shall seek out another place near here, for I like the neighborhood. The houses are so different here, that it seems most interesting, for a while at least, to live in one.

It is a great shock, but a good tonic, to come down here as I have and view the countless multitudes. It seems sometimes almost as though you had lost yourself, and were trying vainly to find somewhere in this sea of humanity, your lost identity.

Today, and the remainder of the week, I shall devote to serious efforts in my writing. If you will help me to the necessities, I think that within six months I shall be fairly able to stand on my own feet. Work is much easier here where I can concentrate. My full love to you, dear father. Write me often and soon.

Harold

To Clarence Arthur Crane

308 East 15th Street / New York City / January 5, 1917

My dear father;--

Your letter informing me of the arrival of Mildred and Erwin [Shoot, a Crane Company employee and his wife], has just come; and I shall go up town this afternoon to see them. It does me a great deal of good to hear from you often, and I hope you will continue to write me as often as you have lately done. While I am not home-sick, I yet am far from comfortable without letters, and often, from you.

Nearly every evening since my advent, has been spent in the companionship of Carl. Last night we unpacked some furniture of his which had arrived from his home, and afterward talked until twelve, or after, behind our pipes. He has some very splendid ideas about artistic, and phsychic balance, analysis, etc. I realize more entirely every day, that I am preparing for a fine life: that I have powers, which, if correctly balanced, will enable me to mount to extraordinary latitudes. There is constantly an inward struggle, but the time to worry is only when there is no inward debate, and consequently there is smooth sliding to the devil. There is only one harmony, that is the equelibrium maintained by two opposite forces, equally strong. When I perceive one emotion growing overpowering to a fact, or statement of reason, then the only manly, worthy, sensible thing to do, is to build up the logical side, and attain balance, and in art,--formal expression.

I intend this week to begin my studying,--Latin, German, and philosophy, right here in my room. They will balance my emotional nature, and lead me to more exact expression.

I have had only one letter from Mother, so far, but I hear from Grandma, this morning, that she is in Chicago and feeling much better.

Hazel [Hasham, another Crane Company employee, who worked at the company office in New York City] has been fine to me, tho I haven't seen her often, as she has been out nearly every time I have been into the office. Miss Bohn, tho, is a dandy, and I have enjoyed talking to her. She has a very sweet way, sincere, and earnest way.

I do most of my bathing and dumping over at Carl's, as these rooming-house privys, and bath-tubs are frightful. Sometime later I expect to be able to afford a small bath-room of my own. Bedbugs, too, have been an awful trial; but never you fear, I am having some fine experiences. In spite of all, tho, I insist on a fair amount of bodily cleanliness for health. Bunshop food has really made me quite magnificent and fat.

Love always from sonny, Harold

To Grace Hart Crane

54 West 10th Street / New York City (Phone: Stuyvesant 5155) February 22, 1917

My Dear Mother:--

Your good letter I have just read, and it cheered me up a good deal. You know, I am working hard and see very few people and even now haven't had more than a half-hour's talk with anyone for over a week. My work, though, is coming along finely, and I shall be published both in Others--and again in the Pagan this next month. Yesterday was a day of tremendous work. I turned out in some ways, the finest piece of work yet, beside writing a shorter poem also.

Mother, you do not appreciate how much I love you. I can tell by your letters that there exists a slight undercurrent of doubt, and I do not want it there. If you could know how I long to see you perhaps that might make some difference.

Now everything is in truth going splendidly, only I get terribly lonesome often when I am through working. A man must wag his tongue a little, or he'll lose his voice. Hurry, so that we can both wag! Harold

To Clarence Arthur Crane

54 West 10th Street / New York City / Sunday, April 1, 1917

My Dear Father:--

It is such a beautiful day that I can hardly find it tolerable to remain indoors and study. I hope it was this fine in Cleveland. The city seems like a pageant.

I got your good letter yesterday, and I tell that there was a long sigh of relief escaped me when I saw that you approved my action in the matter of studies. It was really the only thing to do. And by this arrangement only, can I be prepared to enter Columbia by next Fall. The lessons cost two dollars apiece, and three a week are at least necessary. I paid my tutor yesterday, and only have a quarter to pay for "eats" today, so I hope you will send me a small check soon.

Lessons are keeping me humping now, and will probably do so all summer. My poetry is being accepted right and left now. You will find one piece in the Pagan ["The Hive"] if you care to take the trouble to go into Laukhuff's Bookstore in the Taylor Arcade. But any writing has got to stop now, when I am so occupied in studies. Of course algebra doesn't help any in versifying, but I realize that I have plenty of time in the future for the latter.

I hope you returned home less nervous than when you left for the West. As for me, I have forgotten the word. It signifies nothing whatsoever for me now. I am really quite healthy.

I hear there is some chance of your coming here. If you do, there will be a chance to tell you many interesting experiences I have had which are too lengthy to tell interestingly in letters.

The tape on this typewriter is so clumsy today that I will give up writing much more.

My expenses are about the same in board, and room, only that I would like to enlarge a little on the board, and not have to eat in some of the sloppy places, which, Lord knows why, I felt necessitated in resorting to, when I first came. I guess I had some romantic notion, or felt tempted to try some of the places of the poor. The expenses of the past few weeks of course, do not indicate any such things, but I thought you would surely not object to me taking Mother around to a few theaters [Grace had visited in preparation for her move to the city], and I had to have a new trunk, as the old one has come all to pieces, that little one, you know.

I shall write often now, and we must keep in better touch with each other.

Unreserved love to you, Harold

In a letter from New York on April 7 Crane told his father, "I shall really without a doubt be one of the foremost poets of America if I am enabled to devote enough time to my art." His parents' divorce was completed April 19. Grace and her mother came to live with Hart at 44 Gramercy Park; they returned with Hart to Cleveland in July.

To Clarence Arthur Crane

44 Gramercy Park / New York City / August 8, 1917

My dear Father:--

I am very, very sorry that things are going so badly with Mother. I guess there is nothing for her to do but to get back here as soon as is possible and try to re-instate herself in poise and health. I look for her this week. At least I see no reason why she should linger longer. But I have received no word from her and am uncertain as to much of the true state of affairs with her. I only hope you are avoiding any meetings as much as possible, for as I said, it is now too early,--she is not yet established well enough to endure the strain which you know any contact causes.

The picture [one by Carl Schmitt that C. A. had bought] is to go this morning. Its name is "Olga," and I am sure you will like her very well. Carl is thinking of returning to Warren and Youngstown for a month to fulfil some portrait contracts, but you have pulled him out of a very serious difficulty. He is a little bashful about sending you his doggerel on so slight an acquaintance so maybe I can get it and send it later. I hope that when he comes west you may be able to spend a day together. I assure you an entertaining time.

I have been diabolically nervous ever since that shock out at the house [Grace's attempted suicide], but Sunday Carl, Potapovitch [Stanislaw Portapovitch] and I went out to long beach, and lying in the sun did me some good. If you could shake responsibilities like this for a week or so, it would work inestimable good upon you. You cannot worry on such a beautiful beach with the sound of waves in your ears. We all get to thinking that our heads are really your bodies, and most of the time go floating around with only our brain conscious, forgetting that our bodies have requirements also.

I feel so near to you now that I do hope that nothing can ever again break the foundation of sincerity that has been established beneath our relations. Never has anyone been kinder than you were when I was last home. I want you to know that I appreciate it, and also your two fine letters.

Much love,--Hart Crane

To George B. Bryan

78 Washington Place [New York City] April 23, 1918

Dear George:--

You just caught your train and I just caught the rain. I had a regular cloud-burst to return in after I left the ferry.--Now don't remonstrate against this ink,--I tell you it is spring and green is the only proper color.--To go on with the story, I must tell you I missed you the rest of the day and must exhort you to plan before you come (ten days hence) to stay over Sunday this time. I got a letter from home yesterday as doleful as usual. In fact I have had "the blues" nearly all day as a result of reading it last night just before sleeping.--

Another concert to criticize this afternoon which jerked me out of the mood. Also a young lady I took for company was largely responsible.--

But I have saved the big event.--I must inform you that I have bought a Liberty Bond,--at a "dollar down," etc. I shan't ever be able to pay it but one must be patriotic at all hazards. The editor of the Pagan [Joseph Kling] hasn't returned yet, and I am beginning to feel annowed with all the unanswered mail that lies around the office.--And worse,--the old Hebrew hasn't kept me posted as to where he is, so that he may be in Nova Scotia for all I know, or he may even be back here in town.

You surely are planning to come in again a week from Saturday last, aren't you, George?

I haven't had as much pleasure and happiness in two years as was crammed into those few hours you were here. I am sure you cannot say as much, but you must remember, George, I have been practically starved for any happiness whatever for a long, long time.

Write soon, George, because you are the one person who brings me some sense of restfulness and satisfaction.

Yours as always, Harold

Crane returned to Cleveland in June 1918. He worked in a munitions plant and then for a newspaper before returning to New York in February 1919.

JOYCE AND ETHICS

To Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, Editors of the Little Review

[The Little Review July 1918]

Hart Crane, Cleveland, Ohio:

The Los Angeles critic who commented on Joyce in the last issue was adequately answered, I realize,--but the temptation to emphasize such illiteracy, indiscrimination, and poverty still pulls a little too strongly for resistance.

I noticed that Wilde, Baudelaire, and Swinburne are "stacked up" beside Joyce as rivals in "decadence" and "intellect." I am not yet aware that Swinburne ever possessed much beyond his "art ears," although these were long enough, and adequate to all his beautiful, though often meaningless mouthings. His instability in criticism and every form of literature that did not depend almost exclusively on sound for effect, and his irrelevant metaphors are notorious. And as to Wilde,--after his bundle of paradoxes has been sorted and conned,--very little evidence of intellect remains. "Decadence" is something much talked about, and sufficiently misconstrued to arouse interest in the works of any fool. Any change in form, viewpoint or mannerism can be so abused by the offending party. Sterility is the only "decadence" I recognize. An abortion in art takes the same place as it does in society,--it deserves no recognition whatever,--it is simply outside. A piece of work is art, or it isn't: there is no neutral judgment.

However,--let Baudelaire and Joyce stand together, as much as any such thing in literary comparison will allow. The principal eccentricity evinced by both is a penetration into life common to only the greatest. If people resent a thrust which discovers some of their entrails to themselves, I can see no reason for resorting to indiscriminate comparisons, naming colours of the rainbow, or advertising the fact that they have recently been forced to recognize a few of their personal qualities. Those who are capable of being only mildly "shocked" very naturally term the cost a penny, but were they capable of paying a few pounds for the same thinking, experience and realization by and in themselves, they could reserve their pennies for work minor to Joyce's.

The most nauseating complaint against his work is that of immorality and obscenity. The character of Stephen Dedalus is all too good for this world. It takes a little experience,--a few reactions on his part to understand it, and could this have been accomplished in a detached hermitage, high above the mud, he would no doubt have preferred that residence. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, aside from Dante, is spiritually the most inspiring book I have ever read. It is Bunyan raised to art, and then raised to the ninth power.

To the Rev. Charles C. Bubb

1709 East 115th Street / Cleveland, Ohio / November 13, 1918

Dear Mr. Bubb:--

I hope I am not guilty of an officious presumption in approaching you with this meagre sheaf of poems. I am merely offering them to your consideration as being perhaps of enough interest for you to publish them at The Church Head Press. As you have published, much to the gratification of the few really interested in poetry, some recent war-poems of Mr. [Richard] Aldington, I know your critical judgment to be of the highest standard, and while I am certain that you will be the first to detect any flaws and abberations in these lyrics, I know that you will also be alive to whatever beauty they may contain.

These few poems are "gleanings," as it were, from my work of the last two years, representing the best that I have done so far.--There is still hope, as I am yet under twenty. They have been published mostly in The Pagan, one in The Little Review of December last, and while they are few in number, I thought they might possibly be equal to the boundaries of a modest pamphlet. Six Lyrics, or some such title might be used for the booklet. But anon for such matters ...

I am at present engaged on the Plain Dealer as a junior reporter, and am too much occupied there for much of any personal "business." So, in lieu of a real call on you at your residence, I am leaving these with Mr. [Richard] Laukhuff, as he says that you are a frequent visitor to his establishment [his bookstore].

May I again express my hope that I have not infringed upon your generosity, and assure you that I shall welcome any opinion that you might express regarding the poems themselves, or my suggestions.

Very truly yours, Hart Crane

To George B. Bryan

[Cleveland, Ohio] Saturday, December 28, 1918

Dear George:--

If you plan to come home New Year's please let me know beforehand or while here. I incline to think that you won't have the opportunity but, hope so of course.

One night of happiness,--that was Christmas night! I was tired next day until about six o'clock, but after that I began to revive somewhat, and by midnight I never felt finer in my life. I believe we can think so much about being tired and that we ought to be tired after only 1 hour's sleep, etc. etc, that we are tired, whereas, if we are so busy as to not have any time to think about ourselves at all we soon feel as fresh as ever.

I suppose you went back on the midnight sleeper.

I'm off to work now.--

With love, Harold Write soon and often!!

To Carl Zigrosser

1709 East 115th Street / Cleveland, Ohio / December 30, 1918

Dear Sir:

The illustration crowning the Stevens poem in the December issue of The Modern School tempts me to submit the enclosed lyric of mine as a possible subject of like treatment. I hope to hear from you soon regarding this, and venture my praise of the recent numbers of your magazine.

Very truly yours, Hart Crane

To George B. Bryan

[Postmarked: Cleveland, Ohio / January 8, 1919]

Dear George:--

No, I'm not planning to go to New York until April or May. By that time I hope to have saved enough money to launch forth upon the venture. When I go this time, it will probably be permanently, and when we meet it will be upon Broadway. The nearest possible time I can plan on seeing you, that is, coming to Pittsburgh,--is a week from this next Friday, and that seems to me altogether too near the time you plan to be home for a few days to excuse my journey. If your plan shouldn't materialize, I would probably attempt to console you by coming, but I really hope you do get home, as we can have a better time here. The work has been rather stupid in the office for the last few days, and I can't help longing for the time when I shall be out of it. Keep up writing me, as I would be quite lost without word from you occasionally.

As ever,--Hart Crane

To Carl Zigrosser

1709 East 115th Street / Cleveland, Ohio / February 12, 1919

Dear Mr. Zigrosser:--

Perhaps it is my fault that the poem I sent you about eight weeks ago is not included in the February issue of the Modern School as I had rather expected it would be. You will remember that I suggested an illustration for it by Mr. [Rockwell] Kent, and your reply to this was that you "should be glad to use the poem, `To Potapovitch,' tho I don't know whether the artist who illustrated Wallace Stevens `Apostrophe to Vincentine' will be able to make a drawing for it, as he has gone up to Alaska for an extended period." Thinking that you may have felt a hesitancy about publishing the poem under those conditions and without hearing further from me in reply, I am bothering you now with this letter of reassurance. Illustration or not, I shall feel it a real pleasure to see the poem in your magazine, though I presume that a woodcut by Kent could not but enhance a poem which seems particularly suitable for accompanying illustration

I have yet to see a better-printed magazine in this country than yours, and as soon as I can spare the amount I intend to send for the complete 1918 file. I enjoyed your article on [Randolph] Bourne, and though only slightly acquainted with him myself, I think you "place" him more exactly than Floyd Dell and several other of his friends have done in recent monographs of the man. Would you be interested in seeing any further examples of my poetry? I have no very strict prejudices regarding vers libre or the established conventional.

If you have time and the inclination, please let me hear from you soon,

Very truly yours, Hart Crane

To Carl Zigrosser

119 West 76th Street / New York City [late February 1919]

Dear Mr. Zigrosser:--

Your very generous response to my last letter has been forwarded to me here in New York where I hope to subsist for a while by whatever wits I may have,--at least for a short period. It has been some time since I have [had] any time whatever for poetical preoccupations, but I am in hopes to send you a few other of my productions as soon as I can get them together.

When here before the war I resided in the village, but at last have made the break, and really like my new location, out a ways, much better.

Your appreciation of the Potapovitch poem warms the cockles of my heart. Floyd Dell was on the point of taking it last year, but failed to get the other members of the Liberator staff to aggree sufficiently on the matter. Again, I tried the Pagan, but Kling, the editor, has mysterious aesthetic touchstones. Then, the Little Review rejected it, on account, I presume, of Mr. Pound's rabid dislike of my things. I don't "deal extensively in verse," and am quite particular about where I put in an appearance, and when chanced on The Modern School with its fine typography and woodcuts, I couldn't rest until I had sent the poem to you, although it had to be swiftly and covertly done in that Cleveland newspaper office where poetry of any other sort than the Walt Mason, Edgar Guest, or Robert Service brands is regarded rather superstitiously.

When you are in town I hope you will afford me the opportunity of meeting you. I am much in, and the phone number is Schuyler 5352.

Very truly yours,--Hart Crane

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O My Land, My Friends

0941423182

Summary

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Supplemental Materials

Excerpts

Rewards Program