We don't wanna know the truth.

Cater in the Rye, Ham on Rye, Siddhartha by Hesse perhaps, Heinrich Böll's Children are civilians too No longer human even though I don't like it Little Women The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Not Borges I think that's too esoteric but obviously all these names above are just out of acknowledgement, The ultimate book (to lose your Book Virginity to) is, The Stranger by Albert Camus

Thanks, Cliff. This was beautiful! Eternal.

Having to wear a hairnet to talk about Crane is a tad extreme.

Crane died on a cruise. That’s poetic in itself.

Sometimes it feels like Nothing can be so humbling and yet infuriating as poetry. I have discovered this in a year of reading it seriously for the first time.

For me, no matter whether a Crane poem might be called negative or pessimistic, because of his lyric and inventive gift I find most of his work invigorating and "uplifting." You've given us a fine introduction to him. Crane teaches us a new language made of words we already know--or thought we did. You show us how his sometime opaque difficulty is inseparable from what makes him invaluable to us. And you present this paradox, I guess it is, in an often personal and moving way, even at its most abstract and cerebral moments. Sorry, but after this review you can no longer say with Knausgaard that you "don't get poetry." Gracias for all the work you did here.

I feel this man. Crane was a spirit we got lucky enough to keep through the generations because of his poetry, but the life lived and the man remain just as loved as his works.

I hope you keep doing poetry

No better way to start a channel. You are the man!

Nice review, love Hart Crane since i've first discovered him only a year ago. Ever thought about reviewing R.M.Rilke? Particular his Duino Elegies? Love

Funny you should read Hart Crane after Tennessee Williams; TW ADORED Crane, wanted to be buried at sea where Crane killed himself so their bones could be together (a wish that Tennessee's jerk brother Dakin ignored). Here he is reading one of his poems (a little pickled, but still charming and wonderful as always). kzbin.info/www/bejne/fITGiJ-oataNi7s

Anyone here reading this : find Samuel Delany’s long essay (80+ pages) on Hart Crane entitled “Compass Rose,” it can be found in the collection “Longer Views.” Not only will it give you unbelievable insight into Crane, but it is some of the best literary criticism I’ve ever read in terms of its research.

Excellent review!

Really interesting, albeit morbid, point about poets, the moment, and suicide. Had never made those connections before.

Courtney LaPlante of Spiritbox is a bonafide poet, and I often wonder how she crafts her lyrics. Here’s a good one if you’d like to listen: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e3LMnKZ8acd7psksi=Psy-T14nZPHTem8N The Mara Effect trilogy is great as well.

Beautiful, Cliff. Incredible review

Have you read anything by Iain Sinclair, especially his London books?

Beautiful review, thank you.

I don’t think a poem that can be fully understood is any good, it should not be some sort of puzzle, more like a snapshot of something atmospheric which the author has felt.

"This is really fucked up." Not at all, my man. I credit you for showing your emotions like that, no shame at all

Great review, man!

I believe Hart Crane was one of the most unbelievable talents to ever touch language. i just wish he wasn’t so tormented and lived out a long life. imagine the poetry he would’ve gone on to write…

thanks for this video

welp if you ever visit cleveland where he is from be sure to visit hart crane park in the flats. i enjoyed your thoughts and so will leave you with my fav (and unlike hart very clear) poem -- it's by richard brautigan 1967: All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace I like to think (and the sooner the better!) of a cybernetic meadow where mammals and computers live together in mutually programming harmony like pure water touching clear sky. I like to think (right now, please!) of a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics where deer stroll peacefully past computers as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms. I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all watched over by machines of loving grace.

This video did not feel like fifty minutes wow. And theres absolutely no reason to feel embarrassed about getting emotional. Its authentic and that's why I love your videos. I was thinking the other day about critics, and I thought of this channel which i do not at all think of as critique. your foundation of what you do is the love of literature and expressing it. It's an opposite angle from the critic, Who's concern with the stature of their own opinions is their foundation. I wanted to put that out there because I'm tired of people lumping the latter with the former. About poetry, I'm totally going to read Crane now. I'm not at all saying I understand poetry, but I have written a bit of it over the years, And i like that you talked about poetry as a language of the unconscious. When writing it I go into a trance and the words just come to me. They emerge from the unconscious like strange fish from the murky depths (to use a metaphor David Lynch made on his writings Catching The Big Fish). And what's more eerie is that often I don't even realize what I wrote down until later I can't even decipher my own writing at first and wonder if it's pretentious word salad (sometimes it is!) but I come back and I fucking discover the meaning of my own poems. It's so clear now. Because I didn't write them, my unconscious did I take as much credit as creating my dreams. Even our own dreams are a mystery to us yet they emerged from ourselves. Poetry is just our dreams being channeled into the word. It's the exact same realm. Our unconscious knows things and articulates things to us foreign to our very own conscious. Poetry is about being a bridge to that. Thank you so much for talking about Crane, this will be right up my alley and I'm totally reading this shit

Your observations about the Apollinian and Dionysian anent Crane cues me to question whether youd like another French poet, but of a stridently contrary character than the so-called Decadents, and a friend of the Crosby's; that's St.-John Perse.

Welcome to the party, Cliff.

Thanks Better Than Food. Hart Crane was assigned in Modern Poetry class, I remember watching the Voices and Visions Crane doc that semester (1994). I've given other hours over the years to Crane's poems, never clicked for me, except for one short poem about I think I recall a photo of his grandmother. Gorgeous pathos. I read it in the sun room of a shelter I stayed in in Boone, NC. That was a little over a decade ago. Since I've tried Crane a couple more times, never clicked for me, The Bridge I mean. Not so much, not much. I'll read him again soon. Poetry has been my lifeblood, especially the poetry of painting. The poetry of verse too.

U should read Georg Trakl if you haven’t … think u will enjoy!

Solid advice.

A real poet who embraced the same apotheosis as Empedocles, who threw himself into the crater of Etna. Crane did the same in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, plunging into that eternal abyss, into its boundless depths, the final affirmation of his self-realization as a poet.

A quite wonderful and excellent appreciation of Crane, Cliff, thanks very much. You're thoroughgoing engagement belies any description of yourself as a "poetic novice". Some other poets I think you might be interested in and/or I'd be interested in your thoughts on: Charles Olson, JH Prynne, Jay Wright, John Peck, Jorie Graham, Simon Jarvis, Paul Celan, Cavafy, Elytis, Seferis, Papatsonis, Gerard de Nerval, Victor Segalen, Saint-John Perse, Kathleen Raine, Geoffrey Hill, and David Jones (perhaps the one of these that means the most to me but that is a hard, if not impossible call).

Fantastic review ! And your astute observation of the connection between Kenneth Anger’s films and Cranes poetry is inspiring.

I read him in HS. I loved his poetry.

I just have to say, Hart Crane is my favourite poet. Thanks so so much for the review. There's an abstract catharsis with his work that inevitably leads back to his story and who he was. No wonder Tennessee wanted to be given back to the sea just like Hart. I don't think art exists to uplift or anything, but whenever I'm blue I always revisit Mr. Crane and see that everything I'm going through has been gone through before, and that something great can be borne from the pain. During my first year at college I pinned the line 'The imagination spans beyond despair, Outpacing bargain, vocable and prayer.' to my wall, and it became a kind of mantra.

One of the best modernist poets, man

Seeing the poets you’ve reviewed in the past, I feel you’re not far off from coming across Philip Larkin if you haven’t already

Unfortunately a lot of the poetry fraternity is burdened with a kind of eitist obsession with intellectual difficulty, rather than for beauty or emotional and humanitarian impact. Anyone who tells you that The Waste Land is their favourite poetic sequence is immediately suspect of not actually reading or understanding poetry. Poetry is not a puzzle to decipher. Most good poems should open up to you like a good song. It shouldn’t require a lecture or an equation. More than anything else, a good poem should be felt and experienced. It should make you see a part of human life from a new, enlightening perspective.

Fuckin’ great video, always good to see poets get some light.

I believe the Wasteland deliberately obtuse, whereas Eliot's Four Quartets are far more enjoyable. Why punish yourself reading what everyone has confabulated as his Magnum Opus? Crane while difficult is worth the extra effort. Thank you for this.

Awesome

Beautiful review. Thank you

❤

Man, I love your videos. Bought a copy for myself. Cheers from Cincinnati.

Gettin' into some Harold Bloom sh*t here. Cool. Looking forward to watching.

Wow! finding this review right before Paul Skenes' debut for the Pittsburgh Pirates, banner day for a Saturday. Hart Crane is superb!

You should check out Ezra Pound (no one as ever said this with good intentions so proceed with caution)