Hart Crane (along with D. H. Lawrence) were Tennessee Williams’ main inspirations. It was lifelong love affair. In the empty front page of a collection of Hart Crane’s poems, Tennessee Williams wrote:
State of the World and Myself
I remember that evening, early summer on a mid-western campus – in Iowa. I sat on a white stone balustrade and heard a professional philosopher talk about the ominous state of international affairs. Boys in white shirts, girls in cool white dresses. Youth – respectfully serious, careless, gay. A wide slope of smooth grass, a cool breeze off the river. And loneliness – my oldest companion. The decorous, calm professors and their wives. The threat of war. Reasons for it, causes, solutions, dangers. War! – That was the early summer of 1938 – One year and two months before it came!
This is the summer of 1940 – Ave atque Vale! – Yesterday they bombed, Paris, today Munich, La Havre, Frankfert, Cherbourg, Marseille. Tomorrow? – The Weygand Line may break, Paris may fall, London may be bombed. Destruction procedes implacably like a disease beyond cure. Superficially my life goes one very little concerned with all this. I work. I am lonely. I search for a pleasant companion.
— T.W. 6/5/40
I love the images of cool white linens, cool white marbles , against smooth green lawns. Loevely images of a time that was disappearing even as he wrote.