USA: Poetry Episode In Search of Hart Crane

A study of the life and works of Hart Crane as revealed in his poems and the memories of living friends and associates, including Malcolm Cowley, Waldo Frank, Gorham Munson, and Peggy Baird. Traces his life from his birth in 1899 to his suicide in 1932. Leo Hurwitz Productions

[@brian_nirvana]

still enjoying this video endlessly. It's July 2023.

[@MarlinWilliams-ts5ul]

Bohemians of the 1920s. Seem like good, solid people.

[@TheMakersRage]

And interviewing everyone he knew only 30 years after his death. You'll never be able to make a better Crane documentary than this.

[@risboturbide9396]

Great upload; Hart Crane's poetry is a gift everybody must share.

[@geraldhoward8937]

I am writing a biography of sorts of Crane's friend Malcolm Cowley. This is gold to me, just pure gold, on every level

[@three69]

Brilliant.

[@cheri238]

Vibrant brilliancy of smeared fingertips in sips of amber wine.❤ What a documentary on Hart Crane journey of vistas!!! America's authority of poetry, glimpses of shadows emerging with sweetsness of thunderstorms. A living dance muses with music of words, sinking ships of bottomless seas. Hail!! Rythem of trance just beaming with symmetry. 🙏❤️🌎🌿🕊🎵🎶🎵

[@alexlu9418]

Hart Crane is one of the finest lyric poets America has ever produced imho. The mystical tone of and in his poetry is unmistakable, and after reading the first song in "White Buildings," you know you're in the presence of originary genius. Dickinson, Whitman, Cummings, and Stevens are all wonderful; yet Hart Crane's best poems still haunt me memory and soul; their melodies contained are unlike anything else in the universe. Although personally I feel more affinity with European lyric poets, Hart Crane is the most beautiful exception.

[@sbingham1979]

Yes I completely agree, the music and mystical words reverberate - lines like "How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest the seagull's wings shall dip and pivot him, shedding white rings of tumult, building high above the chained bay waters liberty?" - there is so much beauty there, of both sound and image.

[@rievans57]

he'd go for the sound as well as the meaning, a shock treatment to a line- Fascinating.

[@brian_nirvana]

Just a reminder: I'm reminiscing. I really like this documentary ~ July 2024.

[@alexcolter612]

Another reason that Cody Carvel's is the best channel on KZbin. Thank you

[@poets-speak]

Great film; thanks for sharing.

[@JCPJCPJCP]

I know very little about Hart Crane, and I don't really understand his poetry, but this is an excellent documentary. All these personal recollections from the very smart, perceptive people who knew him well (especially, for me, Malcolm Cowley, whose books I've read and recommend) really bring Hart to life again.

[@rydenr.2999]

This is way better than most documentaries that you see even now

[@svetlananovikova3635]

Loveman is so charming and speaks of Crane with such fondness. I'm glad there are videos of him.

[@lastrada52]

This documentary was far better than most about writers/poets. Incredibly interesting. The talk with Charmion von Wiegand (painter) -- intelligent, spoke with clarity & affection for Crane. Peggy Baird was wonderful with her first-hand account & recollection. You don't always get that. Like when Anne Sexton committed suicide did anyone ever interview Maxine Kumin who was the last to see Anne earlier that same day? Were there any signs? They were having lunch together.

[@friedrichwordsworth7456]

It's wonderful to have this on KZbin. Thank you.

[@sbingham1979]

This is priceless footage. Thank you SO MUCH for sharing this.

[@liammcooper]

I believe the word they're discussing around 39:00 is 'findrinny' which comes from Irish, and means 'white bronze', usually used to decorate bracelets.

[@markaaron5031]

Incredible documentary. I'd read about all the people interviewed herein in the various Hart Crane biographies and also his letters. To see and hear these people is a treat I'd never expected. John Unterecker is an excellent interviewer. Thank you so much for posting. This documentary is a true gem. I found the following info about it:

[@farhangbook1]

Just found your channel and subscribed - brilliant - thank you so much.

[@DejanOfRadic]

What a treasure of a documentary

[@rattyrachel4316]

Entertaining and educational. Thank you Cody Carvel! 🐀

[@DFM3333]

I had Gorham Munson in College in New Jersey

[@TheShotenZenjin]

Finding this youtube channel is like finding a cluster of gold nuggets in your pan.

[@thepagecollective]

My grandfather is Orrick Johns. He met and married Peggy in Greenwich village in 1914. He met Malcolm Cowley in Grantwood New Jersey in 1915. Cowley and Peggy must have met, here, too. My grandfather writes about life with her all the way up to 1916, and then she just drops out of his book. She crops up in other sources in 1917. She told Dorothy Day in 1917 Orrick was dead. Day believed it until the end of her life. Cowley as far as I know never spoke of Orrick. I will always wonder what happened between Peggy and Orrick that she would say he was dead, a he would just have her simply disappear from his book.

[@LizbethPlenty]

Not that it's the most important part of this discussion, but we do hear the interviewees saying that Hart was sometimes depressed. In those days being gay was hidden and even in some places illegal. And then there is the mention of drinking. He was a sensitive artist and expected to fit in to the world he lived in. But he found some solace in reading and writing and putting his whole heart into that, for as short as his life was. God bless you and rest in peace and thank you for the brilliance and harmony that you have shared with us all. You were very brave to do your work and bring out your genius. Sorry it was so hard but it is somewhat better now in that being gay is not as needing to be hidden and folks can share more openly. Not perfect but better than it was then. Grateful to have found you and thank you Cody for sharing this. Also to anyone, there are always alternatives to suicide, if you need , seek help, life is worth living. Peace

[@christopherreynolds4446]

The narration is as poetic as prose can be. Fitting for a documentary on Crane

[@Orfeo68]

THANK YOU!!!

[@brian_nirvana]

Still enjoying this: Jan 2024.

[@warlockofwordsreturnsrb4358]

Wow, Samuel Loveman saved him from a suicide attempt? Now that's a good friend.

[@---yi6tq]

thanks, ms tartt 🧃👩🏻

[@christophermorgan3261]

Alan Tate was a mentor. He was close to Crane. I still recall him speaking of the shock he felt with the news of HC's death. This was totally unforeseen by his contemporaries. I don't feel he is much read anymore, his work is overtly 'literary" and that is out of style.

[@LizbethPlenty]

Just as an example of how one person has discovered Crane, I found out about him while listening to Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copeland. The DJ on KDFC classical music radio said that one of his poems had inspired that great piece of music, and read a snippet. [I forget which poem]. Now I am still researching and finding this profound and moving. Thank you for sharing and everyone, these comments are very helpful. Peace

[@brian_nirvana]

If Hart Crane were my relative, he would be like an older brother to me. I have never had an older sibling. I would like to share one of the poems I wrote for Hart in my book "Green Park." 68 Friend Harold, Friend Hart, our wrapt incisions are canon, and me outspoken with white orchids and beads, oh, it must have been 1923. You son o' Life Savers could've gone to paradise and saluted bees all day in the isle. But You, O Scholar and Legionnaire, O you! You lived! Grab the Gramophone! O wind the sound and pour a round. We drink too much and wind up in fisticuffs. Now he's broke, dead to rights, and resting at my flat with a newborn cat.

[@JohnPaul-le4pf]

Hart Crane's father invented the Life Saver candy. Hart Crane jumped overboard into the Gulf of Mexico, shouting, "Goodbye, everybody!"

[@leafyconcern]

Is this a quote from a poem? If so, which poem?

[@JohnPaul-le4pf]

Not from a poem. From his life.

[@jackspicerisland]

THANK YOU 🤍

[@ronaldpoteat1044]

Samuel Loveman was one of the great forgers of the 20th Century. He specialized in forging Crane material.

[@LizbethPlenty]

Hello, just curious, do you mean creating fake writing? Only way I have heard this word used. Ty

[@ronaldpoteat1044]

@@LizbethPlenty I do not know that he created fake writing but he did create fake artifacts. He ran a bookstore and forged many items from other writers as well as HC.

[@LizbethPlenty]

Well thank you for replying Ronald. Interesting. I am just today newly learning about Hart Crane , via a mention on one of my favorite radio stations, KDFC. The arts are so very important to support in any way that we can. Soul enrichment is so important to humanity. Thank you for sharing. Peace

[@warlockofwordschannel7901]

​@@LizbethPlentyhe could be referring to the parodies Loveman and others in his circle wrote; there was no attempt to pass those off as the genuine articles.

[@anarcho_enby_]

"I think he just lost Hart", funniest shit I've ever heard

[@MarlinWilliams-ts5ul]

I guess Hart had a tough time of it in Mexico. The authorities threw him out of the country apparently.

[@efleishermedia]

I think Crane spoke the American language. He spoke Americana, In the same way Bob Dylan sang it

[@rattyrachel4316]

Interesting! I have to agree!

[@hugomarkl6572]

xmas guffaws it's him in a big window face down in a coffin policeman Hart Crane

[@jtbarbarese]

Ah, but what they knew in '62, and Untermeyer knew lots, they couldn't publish. His letters were expurgated so deeply you'd never guess how raw and funny they could be, and when they were published years ago I returned to things I thought I knew with a pleasant shock. The academy was still blushing over or apologizing for his "unnatural" vices -- a critic named Hazo called him out for his "drunkenness and perversion" -- or calling him an "obscurantist"--Blackmur attacked him, his "friend" Winters had betrayed him, and by the early Sixties who had his back except for Harold Bloom, who used four lines from "The Broken Tower" as an epigraph to The Visionary Company (which was either B's first or second book). This is still fun to watch and see his "account" books and how much he generally owed or loaned out.

[@johnhastings462]

All that academic swill Little minnows Swimming in the wake of a leviathan

[@brian_nirvana]

im thinking this is from 1958-61. I'd like to know when this was created. ty.

[@CodyCarvel]

1966

[@LizbethPlenty]

Might be good to put the date in the description. If you have a moment. Important to some of us. Thank you for asking and thank you for sharing this documentary.

[@FrancisGo.]

It's easier to understand Shakespeare than Hart Crane.

[@brian_nirvana]

my god look at all his ephemera 3:40

[@brian_nirvana]

1:01:49 why is Solomon Grunberg calling Hart a plagiarist?

[@noimpostura]

Platonists is what he mentions.

[@brian_nirvana]

@@noimpostura ty

[@SatiricSatyr]

So lets ignore the fact that he was gay all together, except to randomly slip out that he had "sexual peculiarities" and that he was in fact "NOT a homosexual..." but simply had "neurotic compulsions;" and the fact that he'd call gay people "fag" totally proves this (rather then being proof of his own insecurities, and the the mindset of the zeitgeist")... nice. Happy to live in the 21st century. None the less, still fascinating of course. And what a writer.

[@JeffRebornNow]

when was this documentary made? the idea that they wouldn't embrace his homosexuality seems ludicrous

[@UpperCrustthe3rd]

@@JeffRebornNow it's older. Don't be absurd. It makes complete sense.

[@JeffRebornNow]

@@UpperCrustthe3rd Well, I'm not surprised if it was an older documentary. Waldo Frank's introduction to The Bridge (with the opening poem having obvious homoerotic imagery) makes no mention of Crane's sexuality at all, as if he were a eunuch. Even more humorously, the "fabled" literary critic, Lionel Trilling, wrote an entire critical biography of E. M. Forster without realizing that Forster was the gayest thing England had going, and had been since his university days. When, in the mid-1960s, Truman Capote told the clueless Trilling that Forster was a happy and thorough-going sodomite, Trilling was utterly surprised. Clearly, he had no idea what all those works he was praising were about.

[@cliffdariff74]

the person making this doc, doesn't go deep into the homosexuality of one's life, might mean it was not of public interest. if you'll notice, none of the people here use profanity on the camera either (as they surely might nowadays)... it's called modesty. yes I'm sure they swear, but it's not meant for all to hear, thus the same can be said about one's sexuality. it can be left to the personal, details not necessary, we can figure it out ourselves. Modesty has its place, and apparently here in this documentary also.

[@SatiricSatyr]

@@cliffdariff74 And that would be accurate if they did in fact stay clear of sexuality as a whole. Then one could say they decided to just focus on his work and stay out of personal info. They however, did not go in that direction, decided to go into sexuality, and decided to assign some straight label on him instead. Talking about a man having a girlfriend/wife is not indecent; the same thing can be said about relationships between same sex couples. Furthermore, something that would have caused such a striking difficulty and anxiety in someone's life is worth mentioning.

[@matthewschwartz6607]

Is it known if Crane actually MEANT to commit suicide? It doesn’t seem too clear, and he has no prior history.

[@LizbethPlenty]

Hi, if you listen closely, the interviewees do say he was sometimes depressed and seems to have had tumultuous moods certainly. Not easy to be gay in those days. And then they say "drink took over " and that he was an alcoholic which is certainly a hard road. Sad but good to know that there are more resources available these days to help people who are feeling troubled. Peace to you friend.

[@geraldhoward8937]

@@LizbethPlenty Oh yes, there is no question about it. He had plenty of "history" in that department.

[@warlockofwordschannel7901]

HP Lovecraft's friend Sam Loveman talks about one such attempt here...

[@robert0price]

Thanks i found out he's willy wonka's kid and Jim Morrison's spirit animal

[@brian_nirvana]

1:21:30

[@warren8731]

45:57

[@brian_nirvana]

Hart Crane was homosexual not compulsion neurosis it was he liked guys. I get beyond that and read the man. his likes dislikes his relations with friends and I told him so.