Hart Crane
Poet
Name at birth: Harold Hart Crane
Bright, volatile, short-lived and hard-drinking, Crane was in some ways an archetype of the Roaring Twenties author. Crane is best known for The Bridge (1930), an epic vision of American life with the Brooklyn Bridge as a central image. Crane is often compared to Walt Whitman, both for his modern American sensibilities and for the homoerotic imagery some find in his work. In sheer style Crane also resembled T.S. Eliot, whom he admired. Crane committed suicide by leaping from the S.S. Orizaba in 1932.
Extra credit: Crane was no relation to Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage.
Hart Crane joins actress Natalie Wood in our loop Death By Yacht.
Other 20th-century poets include Allen Ginsberg, E.E. Cummings, Robert Graves and Langston Hughes.
Four Good Links
Hart Crane Resources
Annotated bibliography and more, with a focus on his art and sexuality
Modern American Poetry
With a long meaty bio of Crane, plus analysis of his poems
American Academy of Poets
A biography and brief poetical analysis
Classroom Issues & Strategies
From the Heath Anthology of American Literature, with an emphasis on his sexuality
Vital Stats
Birth
Birthplace
Death
27 April 1932
(suicide, age 32)
Best Known As
Suicidal poet of The Bridge
