The Broken Tower
The last new poem meant to be published in Hart Crane's life, 'The Broken Tower' (1932) has been widely acknowledged as one of the best lyrics of Crane's last years, if not his career. In keeping with the varieties and difficulties of Crane criticism, the poem has been interpreted widely--as death ode, life ode, process poem, visionary poem, poem on failed vision--but its biographical impetus out of Crane's first heterosexual affair (with Peggy Cowley, estranged wife of Malcolm Cowley) is generally undisputed. Written early in the year, the poem was rejected by Poetry, and only appeared in print (in The New Republic) after Crane's famous suicide by water. (Compare his great homosexual love-cycle, ' Voyages'.)
Read more about The Broken Tower: Further Reading
Famous quotes containing the words broken and/or tower:
“You have broken off a weighted leaf
in the wind,
it is hurled out,
whirls up and sinks,
a green stone.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Shall I still be love’s house on the widdershin earth,
Woe to the windy masons at my shelter?
Love’s house, they answer, and the tower death
Lie all unknowing of the grave sin-eater.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)