Time’s rendings, time’s blendings they construe
As final reckonings of fire and snow…
(from “The River” in The Bridge)
Hart Crane (1899-1932) was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of a well-to-do chocolate manufacturer who expected his son to follow his footsteps into the family business. That didn’t happen; Crane had no intention of that happening. Instead, he turned his attention to what he was most interested in: writing—especially poetry.
His most well-known work is The Bridge, a series of poems on the American experience. In a sense, he was trying to write the Great American Poem, much like his novelist peers were trying to write the Great American Novel, which might have already been written (Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1885) (I realize that a parenthetical statement like that may cause controversy). Critics immediately found fault with The Bridge, for all kinds of reasons. They still do.
I had never read the entire work until recently. In high school, our junior English class read a few excerpts from the volume, which includes short poems on Rip Van Winkle, the Brooklyn Bridge (a kind of homage to Walt Whitman), Powhatan’s daughter, the Mississippi River, Cape Hatteras and a number of other subjects. As The Poetry Foundation’s entry on Crane points out, it was perhaps inevitable that the Great American Poem would fall short of its goals. He intended The Bridge to be a kind of response or alternative to T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land; 85 years later, we’re far more familiar with The Waste Land than The Bridge.
I saw the frontiers gleaming of his mind;
Or are there frontiers—running sands sometimes
Running sands—somewhere—sands running…
Or they may start some white machine that sings.
(from “Cutty Sark” in The Bridge)
Crane had a number of influences—Whitman, William Blake, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the English Romantic poets, William Butler Yeats, and James Joyce, among them. He also had a number of “anti-influences, ” including his parents, his antipathy to working in business, and Cleveland. His life wasn’t long; he killed himself by jumping from a ship in the Gulf of Mexico in 1932.
And if they take your sleep away sometimes
They give it back again. Soft sleeves of sound
Attend the darkling harbor, the pillowed bay;
Somewhere out there in blankness steam
Spills into steam, and wanders, washed away…
(from “The Harbor Dawn” in The Bridge)
I find the poems of The Bridge to be of a piece with the period of American literature I connect most strongly with—the ages of Realism and Modernism, roughly from 1890 to 1960. I can almost pinpoint the literary start of my connection—in eighth grade, reading Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea in my reading class. Three years later, I was reading The Great Gatsby by Hemingway’s antithesis, F. Scott Fitzgerald. That year, my junior year in high school, I wrote my term paper on the Realists, focusing on Willa Cather, Jack London, and Edith Wharton.
And the poets: Edgar Lee Masters and Spoon River Anthology, which I still periodically reread; Edna St. Vincent Millay; Edwin Arlington Robinson; T.S. Eliot (we studied “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and The Waste Land in senior high school English class); Dylan Thomas; Wallace Stevens (I never knew how taken I would be by “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird“); the World War I poets. And Robert Frost.
I came to William Faulkner in my 30s, when I read The Sound and the Fury for the first time. And then I read everything he wrote, some works twice and three times.
I’ve often asked myself why this literary period has had the most impact on me, and I keep coming back to two answers.
First, I had outstanding English teachers in junior high and high school. They were a diverse and eclectic group, but what they shared was a love for literature. And they had been shaped in their literary education by the Realists and the Modernists; these were the novelists and poets they loved best. Looking back, I can see that their love, a love sometimes bordering on reverence (and occasional mania), was transmitted to me.
Under the shadow by the piers I waited;
Only in darkness is the shadow clear.
The city’s fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year…
(From “To Brooklyn Bridge” in The Bridge)
Hart Crane and the Brooklyn Bridge
Second, and equally important, this was the period my father came of age. He was born in 1916 in a small town in central Louisiana; a few years later the family moved to Shreveport, where my grandfather ran a small grocery store on the wrong side of the tracks. My father wanted to be a doctor, but the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression ended that dream. Instead, he went to work as a roughneck in the East Texas oilfields.
But he loved newspapers; he had delivered newspapers as a boy and he knew people at the Shreveport Journal. He landed in the circulation department and worked there until he joined the Navy in World War II. He kept a diary during his war years; as it turns out, he was also his ship’s newsletter editor. Somehow he parlayed all of that after the war into a job with a trade magazine publishing firm in New Orleans.
This was the Promised Land, and still it is
To the persuasive suburban land agent
In bootleg roadhouses where the gin fizz
Bubbles in time to Hollywood’s new love-nest pageant.
(From “Quaker Hill” in The Bridge)
I have young childhood memories of going to plays—community theater—with my parents. I can vaguely recall a staging of The Music Man. My father actually had a role in a local production of Bus Stop by William Inge; he played the bus driver. I have a photograph of him and the rest of the cast.
We were never close; he was that silent, World War II generation that didn’t believe in showing much emotion or feeling, especially for sons. I was the middle of three boys, the one he and my mother didn’t have to worry about, the one who studied and didn’t cause trouble or get into fights.
And so I know myself well enough to know that my love for the literary eras of the Realists and the Modernists was not simply because of my teachers and their love for the periods. Reading and studying the poetry and novels of the era is also a way, for me, to try to understand my father, the man I didn’t know very well but who had a powerful influence on my life, including my selection of study in college—journalism.
To read Faulkner is to read not only small-town Mississippi but also small-town Louisiana. To read Spoon River Anthology is to walk in the old cemetery in Shreveport where my grandparents are buried. To read The Waste Land is to read how the world of the 1920s was torn asunder in the world of the 1930s, and the impact that sundering likely had on my father.
It’s difficult of me to read The Bridge and see the failure that most of the critics have seen. Instead, I read it, and I see a young man from the poor side of town, sitting in a high school Latin class with all of the rich kids, studying hard because he was still holding on to the dream of becoming a doctor.
And one star, swinging, takes it place, alone,
Cupped in the larches of the mountain pass—
Until, immortally, it bled into the dawn.
(From “Powhatan’s Daughter” in The Bridge)
Photo by Donnie Nunley, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young, author of the novels Dancing Priest and A Light Shining, and Poetry at Work.
___________________________
How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.
“I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”
—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish
- “The Colour Out of Space” by H.P. Lovecraft and Sara Barkat - November 14, 2024
- Poets and Poems: Robert McDowell and “Sweet Wolf” - November 12, 2024
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Megan Willome says
I love how personal this is, Glynn. How your experience with the poem is about more than the poem itself but also your relationship to the people of that generation (namely, your father). Poetry can do that–provide unexpected connections.
Lynn D. Morrissey says
I really appreciated this essay, Glynn, learning about The Bridge and Hart Crane and his sad demise. I, too, read some of the books you cite in my classes, but admittedly the more stark style of authors like Hemingway is not my favorite. I’ve only read one book by Faulkner: Light in August. You’re interesting me in reading more in this genre. Thank you for sharing on such a personal level, and especially about your father. My father, born in 1927, hailed from the Depression Era, and was not demonstrative, though certainly larger than life, often humorous and witty, and personable. But there was also a depressive and even angry side to him and a drivenness, because I know he felt compelled to provide for his family because of his upbringing in such a financially perilous time. This took him away from us, sadly. He didn’t know how to say I love you, but I knew he did love me. That was never in question. I’m glad that you found such insight about your own father through your reading. Turning a corner, did you ever meet Jewish poet Louis Daniel (LD) Brodsky, who attended Central for four or five years? Not only was he a prolific poet in his own right, but considered to be a leading Faulkner expert. Should you be interested, you could read his works on Faulkner. He also amassed an extensive Faulkner collection, housed now in some university in the South–I think the school is affiliated with Faulkner. LD and I became special friends through church for a couple years before his untimely death last year. You might also enjoy his poetry. It’s extremely lyrical though, which may not be your cuppa. 🙂 Thanks again, for such an insightful post. I really enjoyed it.
Blessings,
Lynn
Rick Maxson says
Glynn, writing so personally about a poem or book magnifies it exponentially. Thank you for sharing your own experiences along with those of Hart Crane and the Bridge. I have never read the Bridge. As always, your essays compel me to expand my reading list.
L. L. Barkat says
I laughed at your parenthetical statement about your parenthetical statement. This is classic Glynn Young wit 🙂
These lines struck me:
“The city’s fiery parcels all undone,
Already snow submerges an iron year”
Just as the Time submerged your father. And you are in its drifts searching for whispers of him. (Thank you for including this part, this touching part, of why Hart Crane and the others of period appeal.)
Richard says
Dear Glynn,
First let me say thank you for your article on Hart Crane and your sharing of your memories of your father. As I hope you’ll see, I was so strongly compelled to send you one of mine as well as some on Hart Crane. The Hart Crane works were, in fact, published on an on-line web site by a teacher at Arizona State whose name I have frustratingly misplaced (Not unusual for me). Please forgive me if I have sent too much about Crane. I blame him. With Lowell, Plath and others, a couple of finely wrought pieces will do. Crane? Well, it just goes on. Sincerely and with blessings, Richard Marcus
You Do Realize
1.
You do realize
They’re going to all be gone soon.
The last ones with the comic accents;
Mishpucha, famiglia, kin, kith.
From Brooklyn. South Boston. Chicago.
Tongues mixed with poverty and cabbage.
They’re almost all used up.
Almost all gone.
The last ones who remember us as children,
Whether we want them to or not.
Our children find it hard to believe.
“You don’t understand,” we say,
“You don’t understand.
They were giants.
Little, tiny giants who owned appliance stores,
Who got very far up in companies;
Who should have invested.”
They’re going to all be gone soon.
The “Greatest Generation.”
The one that saved the world.
Disregarding that they saved it
From their own generation, but
That’s another story.
They’re fading fast.
Drying up.
Busy, busy all day now,
Like in the brochures.
Pictures of swimming pools and dining rooms.
Whispering away in Boca, Boynton Beach, Port St. Lucie,
Whispering away with memory of the bright big bands,
Echoing across the lake,
The twinkling lights.
How rich it was when they would go dancing.
How rich the world was.
2.
They’re going to all be gone soon.
We find that hard to believe,
That they will all be gone.
They find it hard to believe.
You can bet on that.
They were the generation that saved the world.
You can bet on that.
Then we had to save it from them.
Our own children go about
Making their own dominion,
Saving it for themselves.
Making their own history
Anyway they goddamn please,
It seems to us.
3.
They’re going to all be gone soon,
We still ask about their history.
They still shake their heads.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Times were different.”
“Things happened.”
“We had responsibilities.”
They’re right.
We’d never understand.
We didn’t really want to fill their shoes.
Which is maybe why they are in Boca,
Boynton Beach and Port St. Lucie.
We’ve worked hard to forgive ourselves.
Worked hard to make sure everyone understands.
Our own children don’t ask.
We want them to.
We tell them
We understand the world right now.
They don’t believe us.
Backwards on backwards.
We’ll see if it stays that way.
4..
They’re going to all be gone soon.
How can that be?
There were so many of them.
They did just about everything.
And now they’re going to be all gone?
How can that be?
We make room for friends and more friends,
To join us in this choir of middle aged orphans.
We say to stricken faces. “Yes, we know,
They were giants.”
We must be firm with them.
“They’re going to all be gone soon, ” we say to them.
Yes, the greatest generation.
Gone. Every last one.
Such a silence we can’t imagine.
Whispering away with memory of the bright big bands,
Echoing across the lake,
And the twinkling lights.
How rich it was when they would go dancing.
How rich the world was.
– Richard Marcus
Published: Thrive Magazine, Sept.2007
Hart Crane Eulogies
His Ancestors, The Poets.
Preface:
They tore landscapes back,
Made a raw belly of the earth and felt
The great horizons crack
Under the pressure of their passions.
He adored their vast beliefs as they rose again
And again, grinding defiance into the muzzle
Of the machinery till they beat the steel idols
Into the mouths of their own gods.
Then got up the next day
And did it again.
He cocked an ear
To hear the ancient hurricanes
Pounding tin roofs into thunder.
(While the trees roar! The very trees!)
He tried to tell us something about
The nature of love, fear, desire.
We cock an ear to the Master’s voice.
And we swoon in his warnings,
Chattering like the teeth of telegraphs
Slowing to that last
tick
Of an ivory
billiard
ball.
Impugn
“Nothing of him that doth fade / But doth suffer a sea-change / Into something rich and strange.”
Allegedly, you said, “Goodbye, everybody!”
Carefully folded your jacket…
Which meant there were witnesses.
There always were for you.
Some lives are over long before they disappear,
Instead you flung yourself into pirouettes,
Pierced the pliant needle
Through holes the size of starlight,
And did this in such vast numbers,
In so many patterns,
That you lost yourself in the night skies
Amidst a flurry of clattering constellations.
(“We can evade you, and all else but the heart:
What blame to us if the heart live on.”)
Why blame us?
Why blame us for your meticulously public plunge,
Which, in the face of all odds, keeps expanding,
Rippling out on our vigil; your wake.
So much night.
So much night.
So many shattered hourglasses,
Sand spilling into the waves,
And you,
Jumping off to save the grains.
If you’d not leapt off that boat
You might have fallen into the middle
Of your poetry.
He Loved This City So
Beneath the metal and stone boxes,
Marrowed with the pulp of people,
Whose million, weary, evening eyes
The sun melts into liquid gold;
The harsh tube runs,
Hurtles its cargo through the shaking beams,
Palsied by the heat and noise;
The Maiden of The Underground,
Tillered and made tight,
Screeches blind around impossible corners,
At Bank and Wall Streets.
Then…under The Harbor,
Past the metal lady,
Her cold torch
Cutting up the air,
Showing him that freedom suffocates on land,
And in the arms of earthy sailors.
Revolting from those myths,
He sailed towards his lost cause,
The shudders of his suicide,
A more natural death,
Under his beloved Bridge,
Perhaps a moment of doubt,
Then,
Unconflicted and unlost
In his final disappearance
He went under.
His chaste wrappings slipping off,
The funeral’d bones
Went swift to their minerals once again.
They say there is more gold
In those incarnadine waves,
Then on all the earth together.
A Letter from Him
“Oh. I never stood much on dignity,
I’d walk down a street
In a splendorous coat of wide brown
(and orange, yet!) stripes.
I kept in mind, just for sensibility,
That I wouldn’t spend more
Than I had.
But I did.
I always did. Didn’t I?
And I’d let sailors get to the best of me,
Because I was not accustomed
To that sort of living.
Not much accustomed, then.
But I made the most of it.
The most of it that I could,
Now, I suppose,
The crisp blue joys
Of such mornings for me,
My early work,
Did not penetrate
Down, winey deep,
To this paradox of a mountain range
Where I sleep.”
******
The Obituary
It wasn’t the hooch that killed him.
Nor the wild horse of America,
Panicking in her stall.
Crushing a lot of people
Between The Wall
And her brute ribs.
But that he tried to ride her;
Tried to ride her oiled back,
Flying over a continent of rails.
Alleyways flicking by,
Squatters, ash cans,
Lost, stray kittens,
He rode his rails over
The lame remnants of pioneers,
Of settlers
Into the Roaring Century.
Chasing rumorous midnights
Down their tributaries,
Following those epistles of the sea
Back to their source.
He tried to soften the muscle and wild meat,
To make the days tender,
More tender than the snow;
The crumbling of brown, soft letters between lost
And longing fingers.
He found
The animal larger than he thought,
Building in his thighs
The same white heat
Which sluiced the molten rivers
From their ore.
Rushing into streams, her cables twining,
In foundries,
Braiding up her long wild hair
Into bridges, anchor lines and telegraphs.
He found
The heat he sought soldered bodies to their fate.
And like that mad Captain,
Split so long by what he loved
And hated,
He rode her down,
Unable and unwilling to escape
Such things that called so deep,
So loud!
***
His Father Invented Life Savers
I.
The machinery malfunctioned
So yours father invented Life Savers.
But the Gulf of Mexico?
Perhaps La Golfo dei Poeti,
Or Cape Hatteras,
But, no.
And you, being the master
Of the confounding imagery,
Of disappointment
Wouldn’t let something
As unlucky as The East River tide
Cramp your style.
Drowning; lungs slowly filling.
The truth was,
Maybe the truth was,
Nothing could have saved you except fame.
And even that would have,
Just delayed your execution.
So, it was ritual worked well enough,
Pulled into myth like the strings on a beggar’s purse.
Plus, you had an audience.
A Brooklyn Bridge suicide?
Far too obvious.
As well as too much time in the descent for regret.
And knowing that when you hit the water’s pavement
It would hurt like hell.
And your body would most likely be found.
That would have snatched “Lost At Sea.”
From your father’s stone.
Worth considering.
II.
Several passengers on the deck
Out for their morning constitutionals
Believe they heard you bid farewell
You weren’t one to do things,
In the middle of the night
Except to stir the sleep and psyches
Of those who loved your words,
And you.
No, night was for the bridge you built,
Assembling it as you walked across.
Night was where you met,
(Maybe…could have…met)
A different sailor who did not use fists and fear
To pound into you the fact
That genius cannot save a man who craves re-birth.
Death is required to work a resurrection.
Neither can a candy,
Pretending to be something it is not,
Save anything.
All Poems: Copyright 1999 Library of Congress – Richard Marcus