| Yesterday, I shared info related to the 1976 and the 2006 editions of “The Oxford Book of American Poetry” as related to Emily Dickinson, and at the conclusion of that post, I finished with, “Finally, I’ll just add that as I perused the 2006 edition, I discovered that Hart Crane wrote a poem entitled ‘To Emily Dickinson.’ I’ll share that one tomorrow.” Well, that tomorrow is today, and below is the poem, which I’ll get to in a minute. First, let me toss out a bit of confusion surrounding this poem that I first encountered quite by accident. In thinking about today’s post, I mentioned to my wife that I knew three bits of trivia related to Hart Crane (and I won’t disclose whether or not she asked, “Who’s Hart Crane?”). |  |
First, I told her, in exploring the 2006 Oxford anthology, I discovered that Crane had written a sonnet dedicated to Emily Dickinson.
Second, I reminded her that a line from a different poem by Crane supplied Martha Graham with the title for her 1944 ballet, “Appalachian Spring” (and that Crane had used the word “spring” to mean a “brook,” not the season). More info on that can be found HERE.
Finally, I told her that I thought my father had attended Hart Crane Middle School when he grew up in Oakland, California – though I added that I might be mistaken – and the school might have been named for Bret Harte (and I won’t disclose whether or not she asked, “Who’s Bret Harte?”).
Following that last factoid – and knowing that my father had been born in 1928 – my wife asked, “Well, when did Hart Crane live?”
I ran a quick Google-search and learned that Crane was born in 1899 in Garrettsville, Ohio, and get this – the info that popped up on the screen showed the he died in 1932 – in the Gulf of Mexico (and in parentheses it said “Gulf of America”).
Second, I reminded her that a line from a different poem by Crane supplied Martha Graham with the title for her 1944 ballet, “Appalachian Spring” (and that Crane had used the word “spring” to mean a “brook,” not the season). More info on that can be found HERE.
Finally, I told her that I thought my father had attended Hart Crane Middle School when he grew up in Oakland, California – though I added that I might be mistaken – and the school might have been named for Bret Harte (and I won’t disclose whether or not she asked, “Who’s Bret Harte?”).
Following that last factoid – and knowing that my father had been born in 1928 – my wife asked, “Well, when did Hart Crane live?”
I ran a quick Google-search and learned that Crane was born in 1899 in Garrettsville, Ohio, and get this – the info that popped up on the screen showed the he died in 1932 – in the Gulf of Mexico (and in parentheses it said “Gulf of America”).
It turns out that in 1932, Crane was returning to New York from Mexico on the steamship Orizaba, and just before noon on April 27, he jumped into the Gulf of Mexico (the night before he’d been assaulted after making sexual advances to a male crew member). Witnesses reported that he exclaimed "Goodbye, everybody!" before jumping overboard.
Now, here’s the bewilderment I encountered related to the poem: Crane died in 1932, and the sonnet in the Oxford anthology is dated 1933.
Say what? How could he have written the poem in 1933 if he was “lost at sea” (as indicated on his tombstone) in 1932?
Well, I resolved that bit of confusion later in the day when I ran a word-search for the word “dates” in the online copy of the 2006 anthology and found this:
“A note on dates. No real consistency is possible in assigning dates to the poems. Generally we opted for the year of first publication in a book by the author, which in most cases is easier to find than the year of composition, even though this practice leads to such absurdities as giving the year 1939 to a poem by the seventeenth-century Edward Taylor for the reason that Taylor's works, unearthed by a scholar, came into print that year. It is often difficult to establish when a given poem was written, or completed, or abandoned, but when strong evidence suggests a certain year, we have gone with that to avoid anachronisms.”
Now, here’s the bewilderment I encountered related to the poem: Crane died in 1932, and the sonnet in the Oxford anthology is dated 1933.
Say what? How could he have written the poem in 1933 if he was “lost at sea” (as indicated on his tombstone) in 1932?
Well, I resolved that bit of confusion later in the day when I ran a word-search for the word “dates” in the online copy of the 2006 anthology and found this:
“A note on dates. No real consistency is possible in assigning dates to the poems. Generally we opted for the year of first publication in a book by the author, which in most cases is easier to find than the year of composition, even though this practice leads to such absurdities as giving the year 1939 to a poem by the seventeenth-century Edward Taylor for the reason that Taylor's works, unearthed by a scholar, came into print that year. It is often difficult to establish when a given poem was written, or completed, or abandoned, but when strong evidence suggests a certain year, we have gone with that to avoid anachronisms.”
| Mystery solved. Well, I s’pose that’s enough for today – so we’ll get to Crane’s homage to Dickinson tomorrow. And by the way, the more I think about it – and based on the dates discussed above – my father’s middle school must have been named for Bret Harte. STOP THE PRESSES FOR AN UPDATE: On a whim this morning, I ran a Google-search on “Bret Harte Middle School in Oakland, California,” and look what I found (see the picture at the right). |  |
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