KEY WEST

The Child Idiot

“The boy strangling

under the mimosas”

—Hart Crane, “The Idiot,”

Key West

Simply shocking, my dears—

Doing it for all to see him

Born-again idiot savant

Strangling himself to death—

Fumbling beneath the palms

Moaning in the mimosas

Teenage child idiot—

Infernal retard in the nude

As I hurried by

He was losing it, agape—

His hand playing, pealing it

Tilting midnight moon sky

He couldn’t help it—

I stared at the hopeless kid

Stroking his ghastly tool

My trespassing shame—

Ogling his simply huge penis

His overflowing rose

Key West Revisited

“how gay culture continues
to perform a sly and profound
critique of what passes for normal”
—David M. Halperin, “Normal as Folk,”
The New York Times 6/21/2012

It’s gay pride month again—
And time for the str8t intelligentsia
To get snide about the queer and
Lesbian parades again


Bring on the dykes on bikes—
The Lady Gaga queens in drag
And the usual flaunting floats

Meanwhile the Brooklyn Bridge—

Still spans the East River and

There he is up there on the roof

Columbia Heights—

Emil Opffer gazing out over NYC

Now that Hart Crane is gone

The Fleet’s in again—

But the sailors don’t miss him

Anymore than the other queens

Djuna Barnes is gone too—

An apartment in Greenwich Village 

Along with Mina in the Bowery

How Queer?

“Crane’s boorish erotic

fixation on hypermasculine

working class images of

masculinity.”

—Brian Reed, Hart Crane:

After His Lights

Excuse me, my dear—

Aren’t you getting a bit

Tres Miss Yvor Winters?

Why not throw in—

Miss Whitman’s love for

Soldiers, sailors & farmboys?

Since when is male gaze—

Limited to Adam’s rib or

Reproductive labor?

Rapture ruled by str8t—

Heteronormative policing

Get real, my dear.

Empyrean Rose

“Crane might deserve

a seat in the queen’s

heavenly seat, but he

does not merit a place

in the Empyrean Rose.”

—Brian Reed, Hart Crane:

After His Lights

Such drama queens—

Djuna Barnes & Miss Crane

Wrecking str8t hearts

Fellow ephebes—

Campy, absurd compatriots

Of decadent morbidities

Djuna with her cape—

Hart with his Key West

Pirates of Penzance pizzazz

Reveling themselves—

Flaunting lotsa lavender

And mid-mauve lush

Hart Craine

HART CRANE

______________

Miss Crane as Europa

Male Sapphic Modernism

Letter to Miss Tate

Highstepping Hysteric

Letter to Yvor Winters

_____________________

Miss Crane as Europa

“Was he aware of the

incredible deviousness

of his language?”

—Paul Bowles, Foreword

O My Land, My Friends

“I have been driven at last

to the parks. The first night

brought me a most strenuous

wooing and the largest

instrument I have handled.

Europa and the bull are

entirely passé. As this

happened only two nights

ago, I am modest and

satisfied. Still, I am

uneasy. I fear for all the

anti-climaxes that are surely

in store for me. Like Alec,

I yearn for new worlds to

conquer, and I fear that

there are only a few

insignificant peninsulas

left.”

—Hart Crane, O My Land,

My Friends: The Selected

Letters of Hart Crane: To

Wilbur Underwood [Cleveland,

Ohio] 4^th of July [1922], The

Selected Letters of Hart Crane

Male Sapphic Modernism

“I often wish we could get

together and read aloud—

there are so few people

who like that mutual

pastime any more.”

—Hart Crane in a letter

to Wilbur Underwood

[Cleveland, Ohio] 4^th

of July [1922], The

Selected Letters of

Hart Crane

I suppose it takes one—

To know one as far as

Size queens are concerned

And both these letters seem

To hint (“WHOOPS”?) that…

But besides that—

Letters are like more like

Readings in that orality rules

Rather than simply reading

Prose since letters swoop

Down out of the aether with

Little pretense of Olympia.

Although this letter—

Of 1922 seems so camp &

Relevant even now almost

A century later as does the

Other communiqués here

Within this juicy volume.

Size queen mythology—

Once so chic & in vogue

So full of mythopoetic

Creatures like Europa &

Her Bull, well, honey…

Not that size isn’t—

The last avant garde or

Anything like that but

Still a hung Cisco Kid

Still seems to have its

Pancho aficionados &

Queer Theory shocked

Academics in a Twit…

The Dyke Contingent—

Of Sapphic Modernism

At a recent conference

Objected to the shocking

Backdrop of a well-hung

Hispanic male during a

Speaker’s QT lecture…

Which seems to—

Indicate a QT factional

Dispute deep in the

Butch bosom of Lesbos

Queer Theory which

Needs to be discussed…

Letter to Miss Tate

“Euthanasia”—where you hit

humanity a few slaps, but in

so interesting a way!”

—Hart Crane, Letter to Allen

Tate [Cleveland, Ohio]

Wednesday / July 19, 1922

Your poem is—

So creative, my dear, where

The ordinary “character”

Portrait is merely analytic

And, generally, unimportant

(at least in poetry).

And you needn’t, my dear—

Be afraid of running too

Squarely into Miss Eliot with

Work like this.

You’re such an excellent—

Bitch queen, giving praise

With an edge and beauty,

Allen. That downward slant

Of your damnations, so gay!

Your marriage? Well, dear—

It sounds ominous. Think well,

Beforehand. Are you easily

Satisfied? That’s the main

Danger. Affectionately, Hart

Highstepping Hysteric

“I’m glad to hear—

that you feel lie commenting

on The Bridge…”

—Hart Crane, Letter to Yvor

Winters, 190 Columbia Heights

[Brooklyn, New York] January

27 [1930]

Tate is reviewing it—

For The Hound & Horn,

Cowley for the New Republic,

Schneider for the Chicago

Eve. Post.

That leaves Poetry & The Nation.

I recently read the “Indiana”

Section to Harriet Monroe. There

Aren’t that many openings for

Any of us.

I’m eager to read—

Your exposé of Robinson Jeffers.

I’ve always felt that Jeffers was

Sincere—but that doesn’t quite

Suffice. Somewhat “gifted”—

To use a horrible word.

But everything—

He as written has given me a

Vague nausea. He’s really just

A Highstepping Hysteric, I’m

Afraid.

Letter to Yvor Winters

“Your disparagement of—

The Bridge surprised me

Considerably, dearest Yvor”

—Hart Crane, Patterson,

New York / June 4, 1930

Such hypocrisy, my dear Yvor—

You’ve simply outdone yourself!

Misrepresenting your prejudices—

Toward a biological fact or it just

Your own autobiographical approach

To gay poetry these days?

Of course, you’ve the right—

To be str8t & dish any work of art

Or personality as often as you see

Fit, but I’m less certain that your

Validity as a critic is strengthened

By permitting your own prejudices

To blur the text before you on the

Printed page…

Your homophobic rant—

Certainly takes advantage of your

Hetero persuasions against certain

Features & directions repugnant

To you in The Bridge.

It doesn’t seem to have mattered—

Which sections or lines to cite for

You to exaggerate, misappropriate—

Or just confuse to make your rant

More convincing.

Anyone can read “Indiana”—

And realize that it’s not some tacky,

Mawkish memorandum on queers

Anymore than The Bridge is some

Kind of gay undertaking daring to

Span the morality & high morals

Of the East River.

You assume The Bridge is an epic—

When we both know our present

Stage of cultural development simply

Negates such an organic mythology.

Were you trying to burden me with

Traditional pedantic trappings so that

You could chastise me like an unruly

Whitmanesque schoolboy?

Surely, my dear, tenure at Stanford—

Hasn’t dulled you senses with tacky

Folk lore or caused you to betray with

Such premature gusto “The River” as

Some kind of turgid anti-climax skuzzy

Whitman dish unmastered to any

Unforeseen degree other than merely

Masturbating “purple passages”?

C’mon now, Queen Yvor—

Your petticoat is showing, my dear.

Accusing me of “Moral Surrender”

And “Reversion of the Species” or

Heaven knows what else—it’s simply

Laughable for you to distort my

Innocent poem as some kind of

Terrible “Behavioristic Betrayal.”

The next thing you’ll be doing—

Is accusing Shakespeare of gay

Homicidal inclinations because

He created Macbeth. Again, your

Notions of what is feeble in my

Character offers false premises.

My acknowledgment in The Bridge—

Of Whitman’s influence as “Not

Greatest, thou—not first, not last—

But near” [line 200 in “Cape

Hatteras”]—apparently, this line

Discolored the entire poem in

Your estimation. Not gay enough?

My so-called unflattering—

“Moment to moment” inspirational

Limp to complete The Bridge in

5 years apparently doesn’t fit into

Your Poker game mentality…

Reshuffling the cards—

Sustaining something-or-other

(“Differentiations of experience”)

Into a winning hand on a Saturday

Night schmoozing with the boys…

The Wreckage of Hart Crane

“One thing he has demonstrated—

the impossibility of getting anywhere

with the Whitmanian inspiration. No

writer of comparable ability has struggled

with it before, and, with Mr. Crane’s

wreckage in view, it seems highly unlikely

that any writer of comparable genius

will struggle with it again.”

—Yvor Winter, "The Progress of Hart Crane," Poetry 36 (June 1930), 153, 164-65.

The wreckage—or should I say the sinkage—of Miss Crane recently only confirms my astute criticism of literary genius in dishing both Miss Crane & Miss Whitman.

First the wreckage of The Bridge—now the sinkage of the Poet. Both incredibly tragic events—but both of them foretold by my foreboding predictions of doom.

It is now impossible for Miss Crane to recover herself. In any event, she has given us plenty of happy sailors and some good times when the word gets out that yes, indeed, “The Fleet’s in!!!”

As Miss Logan in The New York Times review of Miss Crane’s Collected Poems snidely remarked—Hart Crane was good at mooching sugar daddies and giving head to horny young sailorboys.

His last mooch-job, a Guggenheim down to Mexico to trick with the Cisco Kid and butchy Hispanic hustlers was simply a total disaster—just like the rest of his failed career as a Modernist Poet—a pansy Sapphic Modernist one at that.

Just as Djuna Barnes or Harry & Caresse Crosby who published the Black Sun version of The Bridge in Paris. Or Peggy Robson who typed and retyped the final texts of the poem Crane sent to Paris.

Just ask Walker Evans, the photographer, whose photos Crane used instead of Joseph Stella’s oil paintings of the Brooklyn Bridge. Stella’s heroic paintings were much too butch & macho—something like Evans was needed. Small photos to emphasize the gay intimacy & effeminate inwardness of Crane’s vision.

Perhaps I was too hetero, too full of what Gertrude Stein called “Patriarchal Poetry” expecting Crane to live up to my more male, heroic Pound Era aesthetics. Can I help it if I was offended by every queer line & homo section of The Bridge?

It is necessary, before attempting to dish Miss Crane’s demise, to place him in the proper genre and to give as accurate an account as one is able of his so-called theme.

1 The Bridge cannot be called a gay epic, in spite of its endeavor to create and embody a homosexual myth, because it has no narrative framework and so lacks the formal unity of a str8t epic.

2 It is not didactic, because there is no logical exposition with all its faggoty ideas; neither Homer nor Dante could possibly supply any true standard of comparison.

3 The structure we shall find is lyrical; but the poem is not a single lyric, but rather a collection of gay cabaret swan songs on themes more or less related and loosely dumped on each other.

4 The model, in so far as there is one, is obviously the God Gay Grey Poet Miss Whitman, whom the author proclaims in this book as his Master (Masturbator).

But now Miss Crane is dead—dead like Harry Crosby in the Hotel des Aristes in New York. A double suicide, an act of absurd violence without explanation, a grisly, sensational death that stunned everybody just as Crane’s absurd suicide from the railing of the Orizaba into the pale green shark-infested Caribbean shocked everybody.

I know I was simply shocked as well—but then it was bound to happen. What did Crane leave behind? Several lyrics that one might be tempted to call great, and in both books several charming minor lyrics and many scattered, magnificent fragments.

Let’s forget about his so-called pretensions at tres gay impossible Whitmanesque inspiration. No writer of comparable ability has struggled with it since, and, now with Miss Crane’s wreckage a la sinkage in shocking view, it seems highly unlikely that any writer of comparable genius will struggle with it again.

Miss Crane is not alone in this danger; it is one of the greatest dangers of the entire body of modern gay poetry—whether anti-intellectualist like Sapphic Modernism or its man-loving mongrel twin sister Queer Modernism.

It can be seen in the Poet Laureateship shit of Miss Anne Duffy—the eternal Grande Dame of British Poetry. The first & last & only female Poet Laureate that will ever grace the wonderful waves of butchy Britannia.

The exceedingly butchy laureates of the past such as the exquisitely devilish & nefarious wife-killer Ted Hughes surely will make a come-back with the next male dynasty.

Or the American Poet Laureate Kay Ryan—another fine example of what to expect from GLBT Poetics.

The dangers potential in the style of these first two Sapphic Modernist Poet Laureates has become actual and almost smothering so.

Recently, it can be seen in a good deal of the latest work of Alex Dimitrov, a 26-year-old rising poet, who wears a black leather jacket with matching black boots and jeans for his salon soirees. Sly and delicate, he is the founder of Wilde Boys, a roving salon for self-described queer poets at which attendees lounge fetchingly and flirtation comes in the guise of academic one-upmanship.

According to the Fashion and Style section of the snotty New York Times, this gaggle of young queens gather at dumpy, art-filled apartments on lower Fifth Avenue to do poetry. Stylishly swank, dirty and disheveled, slimly tailored, these fag pretenders cruise one another at the bar before settling into various parlors, which are tackily furnished with porno books, Midcentury Modern chairs and a large Negro painting by Miss Mapplethorpe.

Every seat is filled with slumming queens — a common sight at this makeshift Greenwich Village salon. No fewer than twelve fags crammed onto the same beige fainting couch, cocktails in hand. Handsome waiters squeezing through, young hustlers passing out in the bedrooms, platters of steak on toast, shrimp on skewers and salmon in cucumber cups.

It can be seen in a good deal of the latest work of Dennis Crosby, who, while revolutionizing the gay word, spends an appalling lot of detailed time chatting up gossipy email about bad boyz, suicide and the like.

I regret above all to add, that in the last three or four years’ work of Miss Dennis Cooper, her literary experiments in perpetual porno motion are becoming so repetitious as to appear very nearly mechanical or even static.

Miss Cooper, though a writer of great range and mastery, in all likelihood, more than any of these other notable nonentities, is like Hart Crane bound to be the victim of his own Sadomasochism—just as all intellectual writers like boyish Rimbaud whom he emulates eventually end up becoming.

Miss [Robert] Frost, on the other hand, at the age of one-hundred-fifty-years, seems to continue to grow amazingly. While most poets like Miss Dimitrov and Miss Cooper appear to be disintegrating fairly early, Miss Frost continues to crank it out unashamedly and unabashedly in his Amherst mansion…