Hart Crane

Hart Crane

Harold Hart Crane (July 21, 1899 – April 27, 1932) was an American poet. Finding both inspiration and provocation in the poetry of T. S. Eliot, Crane wrote modernist poetry that was difficult, highly stylized, and ambitious in its scope. In his most ambitious work, The Bridge, Crane sought to write an epic poem, in the vein of The Waste Land, that expressed a more optimistic view of modern, urban culture than the one that he found in Eliot's work. In the years following his suicide at the age of 32, Crane has been hailed by playwrights, poets, and literary critics alike (including Robert Lowell, Derek Walcott, Tennessee Williams, and Harold Bloom), as being one of the most influential poets of his generation.

Read more about Hart Crane:  Life and Work, Poetics, Depictions, Bibliography

Famous quotes by hart crane:

    Creation’s blithe and petaled word
    To the lounged goddess when she rose
    Conceding dialogue with eyes
    That smile unsearchable repose—
    Hart Crane (1899–1932)

    Papooses crying on the wind’s long mane
    Screamed red skin dynasties that fled the brain,
    Hart Crane (1899–1932)

    And this thy harbor, O my City, I have driven under,
    Tossed from the coil of ticking towers. . . . Tomorrow,
    And to be . . . . Here by the River that is East—
    Hart Crane (1899–1932)

    Bind us in time, O seasons clear, and awe.
    O minstrel galleons of Carib fire,
    Bequeath us to no earthly shore until
    Is answered in the vortex of our grave
    The seal’s wide spindrift gaze toward paradise.
    Hart Crane (1899–1932)

    The phonographs of hades in the brain
    Are tunnels that re-wind themselves, and love
    A burnt match skating in a urinal—
    Hart Crane (1899–1932)