Who here has read Hart Crane? He's been called a "poet's

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Who here has read Hart Crane?

He's been called a "poet's poet", probably because his work takes a lot of effort to grasp conceptually, and the structure and rhythm of his poems usually subtle, and not usually apparent upon first glance.

I read his work slowly, going over many lines many times. I've never read anything like it. I just read it over and over, and then it just kind of makes sense. I wouldn't say he writes about anything notably complex, but the perspective with which he conveys it is really alien, and takes a while to wrap my head around.

But if I'm just looking at the writing, the words themselves, and can't think of many modern English poets who are comparable in skill level. He's easily better than Pound, and not because i just don't like Pound's style. The only person I think he is really comparable in style to is Eliot, but not structurally, as Hart's structure is simpler than Elliot's. But, Phonetically, he is a like Eliot but better, kind of like EE Cummings but with grammar.

Another think i find interesting about him was his prominence among the intellectuals of his time, despite being a high school drop out. His "Theory of Metaphor" is very interesting to me. From what i understand, he says that words used in poetry or other literature go beyond and become detached from their semantic meanings. They become something personal to the writer. And this "closeness" that the writer has to the word predates the word, and is where we find the true essence of poetry.

He killed himself at 32 because he considered himself a failure. Despite his hard life, which was troubled with alcoholism and sexual frustration, as he was gay during a time when it was illegal, he sought to create a poem in the same vein of that of TS Eliot's Wasteland, one that was more optimistic than Elliot's view of modern life.