Paul Mariani
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The Broken Tower: The Life of Hart Crane
Paul Mariani
Few poets have lived as extraordinary and fascinating a life as Hart Crane, the American poet who made his meteoric rise in the late 1920s and then flamed out just as suddenly, killing himself at the age of 32 and thus turning his life and poetry into the stuff of myth. A midwesterner who came to New York to remake not only the city but also American poetry, Crane insisted on walking on the edge, living hard and drinking harder. Part of the New York gay scene of his time, he also played a central part in the avant-garde New York literary world, along with Cummings, Moore, Toomer, and Williams. But most of all, he gave us a singular poetry, including his famous “The Bridge” (his epic celebrating the fabled Brooklyn Bridge), along with a poetic cadence that has never been duplicated.
The first biography of Crane to appear in thirty years, The Broken Tower includes major new discoveries about Crane’s life that have surfaced since then—many culled from previously suppressed letters and other manuscripts—as well as new photographs. Most remarkably, Mariani probes Crane’s inner…
