Tag Archives: Hart Crane

“Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.” — poet/engraver/visionary William Blake

“I mean, don’t you think it’s a little bit excessive?” “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. William Blake.” Pause. “William Blake?” “William Blake!” “William Blake???” “William Blake!!!” — Bull Durham William Blake was a poet virtually … Continue reading

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“Sunlight on a broken column.” It’s T.S. Eliot’s birthday.

Poets like William Carlos Williams and Hart Crane both said that they needed to forcibly divorce themselves from Eliot’s influence in order to be able to write. His language and influence had that strong a pull. Too much pull. His … Continue reading

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“He who has never felt, momentarily, what madness is has but a mouthful of brains.” — Herman Melville

“Old nineteenth-century New England must have been fearful–in what other country would Thoreau, Melville, Whitman and Dickinson have been so overlooked?” — Robert Lowell, letter to Elizabeth Bishop, December 12, 1958 Herman Melville was born on this day in 1819. … Continue reading

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“The rhythm is jazz.” — Hart Crane

“What I want to get is … an ‘interior’ form, a form that is so thorough and intense as to dye the words themselves with a pecularity of meaning, slightly different maybe from the ordinary definition of them separate from … Continue reading

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“[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman

“I like to think that eventually he will shame us into becoming Americans again.” — Guy Davenport on Walt Whitman Whitman is the organizing principle behind my review of Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Revue. Bob Dylan quotes Whitman all the … Continue reading

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“All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.” — Charlie Chaplin

“The secret of Mack Sennett’s success was his enthusiasm. He was a great audience and laughed genuinely at what he thought funny. He stood and giggled until his body began to shake. This encouraged me and I began to explain … Continue reading

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Annotated Hart Crane

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 … Continue reading

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Happy Birthday, Herman Melville

Herman Melville was born on this day in 1819. Moby-Dick is one of my all-time favorite books (my essays and excerpts are linked at the bottom of this post) – so I figured I wouldn’t just re-hash that old territory … Continue reading

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Eureka!

“I feel like shouting EUREKA! Easily the epic of the age.” — Hart Crane on “Ulysses”

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Melville’s Tomb

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 … Continue reading

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