JULY 1976
O Thou steeled Cognizance whose leap commits The agile precincts of the lark's return
Within whose lariat sweep encinctured sing
In single chrysalis the many twain,--
Of stars Thou art the stitch and stallion glow
And like an organ, Thou, with sound of doom....
Monuments to his Ohio background can be found in a few of Crane's poems, notably "My Grandmother's Love Letters," "Praise for an Urn," "Sunday Morning Apples," and "Porphyro in Akron." "Praise for an Urn" memorializes a friend, Ernest Nelson, whom Crane describes in the opening stanza:
It was a kind and northern face
That mingled in such exile guise The everlasting eyes of Pierrot And, of Gargantua, the laughter. "Sunday Morning Apples" will be meaningful to anyone who has seen work by William Sommer, the local artist to whom the poem is addressed. Sommer is well represented in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Crane writes of one of Sommer's favorite subjects:
I have seen the apples there that toss you secrets,--
Beloved apples of seasonal madness
That feed your inquiries with
aerial wine.
Put them again beside a pitcher
with a knife,
Monuments of another sort remain in the buildings or their sites where Crane spent his life in this area: his family home in Garrettsville, the house at 1709 East 115 Street to which he was brought in 1908, Fairmount Elementary School, East High School, the Hotel Bond in Akron, the Del Prado in Cleveland, Euclid and 13th where his father's factory and store were located, and Crane's Canary Cottage, his father's restaurant where Crane occasionally worked or visited, which still stands in its yellow paint as one enters Chagrin Falls from the west on Route 422.
At the 1974 birthday celebration, another poet orginally from Cleveland, Richard Howard, read his poem, "Decades," the most substantial literary monument to Crane by
Sanctum E de la tour
HIGH GEAR
anyone from this area. It is printed in Howard's latest collection, Fellow Feelings.
To anyone who wants to know Hart Crane more intimately, Unterecker's aforementioned biography and Crane's collected poems are indispensable. Crane's reputation has been substantial enough that two earlier biographies, by Philip Horton, in 1937, and by Brom Weber, in 1948, as well as Crane's letters, edited by Weber, in 1952, have been published. Crane's gift should not remain obscure but be celebrated. As he has gained the attention of critics and biographers, Crane deserves also the recognition so far generally denied him by people of this area, particularly from its gay community.
Mitchell Menegu
$1709 E. 115 St Clercland,
And poise them full and ready 1709 East 115 Street: the house in Cleveland where Hart Crane
for explosion--
The apples, Bill, the apples!
grew up. He indicated his tower bedroom ("sanctum de la tour") on this postcard photo in 1928, when the house was sold
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To be or not to be?
by Hart Crane
BUT SO to be the denizen stingaree-As sterterous as nations romanized may throw Surveys by Maytime slow ... Hexameters Suspending jockstraps for gangsters while the pil-
Bland (grim) aces Plutarch's perch. And angles Break in folds of crepe that blackly drape That broken door. . . Crouch so. Amend
Then; and clinch.
Sweep..
Clean is that cloven Hoof. Then reap
Strain, clasp oblivion as though Chance
Could absent all answer save the chosen rant.
Stop now, as never, never. Speak
As telegrams continue, write, strike
Your scholarship (stop) through broken
Page 9
ribs, jail
(Stripe) answers Euclid. Einstein curves, but does not
Quail. Does Newton take the Eucharist on rail
Nor any boulevard nor more? I say...
For there are statues, shapes your use
Repeals. Youse use. You're prevalent,--prevail!
Youse
Break food once more and souse, like all me under sail. My friends, I never thought we'd fail.
That dirty peacock's pride, once gory God's own story:
It didn't belong no more; no, never did glory Walk on Euclid Avenue, as didn't Wm. Bleached or blacked, whichever 'twas. What milk We've put in blasted pigs! I says... O. well-
But I say, what a swell chance, boys. No more Cancers, jealousy, tenements or giblets! Death, my boys. Nor blinkers either-
February 1923.
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Complimentary note ...
***********
to LADY Z and cast for "THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS" which I enjoyed seeing on Friday, May 28, 1976 in Warren, Ohio. Troubadour Lounge
Ed Lesnak.
Youngstown
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