Craft: Hart Crane

Hart Crane (1899—1932) was a major American poet, but his knotty, ornate, and highly figured poems have fallen out of favor; he’s rarely read or referenced, and very few people understand either his life or his poetry¹. He was only able to produce two short books (White Buildings and The Bridge) and part of a never-finished third, Key West.

Even to Crane’s friends (such as Yvor Winters, Malcolm Cowley and Katherine Anne Porter) could be exhausted by his manic drunkenness, constant sponging for money, and self-destructive addiction to aggravating those around him. Still, he remains a “poet’s poet,” a person who was so reckless despite being devoted to his vision that he leapt two minutes before noon on Wednesday, April 27, 1932 from the deck of a ship, the Orziaba, 275 miles north of Havana into the Atlantic.

Crane around 1930