My sister Jean turned me on to Hart Crane – who is absolutely phenomenal. Here’s a poem from him in honor of National Poetry Month.
At Melville’s Tomb
by Hart Crane
Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.
And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death’s bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.
Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.
Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides . . . High in the azure steeps
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.
Beautiful!
Crane is an unbelievably important poet, and I think that the literary culture has yet to absorb his impact fully. It’s amazing to me that his influence so far has been limited to Tennessee Williams and to relatively unknown poets like Alvin Feinman (whom I revere) and John Bricuth. Crane’s time is yet to come.
It is also amazing to me that even though his early death has left us with a truncated body of work, what he left us is overwhelming. Just imagine if he had lived as long as Wallace Stevens! I believe that if he had lived that long, his achievement would have become so large that there would be no question that he was the greatest American poetic genius ever, greater than Whitman, greater than Dickinson, incomparable.
What an enormous loss his early death was!
It is astounding the power of his poems – especially in regards to his youth.
I hadn’t really thought about the points you bring up in your post … very interesting. Seems to me that Hart Crane is due for some kind of renaissance – because I think you’re right. He is (or should) be in the pantheon.