In “Hart Crane in Altadena: November 1927-March 1928,” Robert Savino Oventile memorializes American poet Hart Crane (1899-1932), known for two books of poetry, White Buildings (1926) and The Bridge (1930).
Born in Garrettsville, Ohio, Crane dropped out of high school and traveled to New York City to pursue poetry. The realities of surviving in New York tested Crane, as did living out his homosexuality decades before the Stonewall Uprising. Difficult, nomadic years ensued, yet his poems began to appear in important literary journals.
About a year after a creatively productive 1926 stay on the Isle of Pines (adjacent Cuba), Crane found himself back in New York in the winter of 1927, scraping by on a bookstore job. Then chance brought him an offer from the wealthy stockbroker Herbert Wise to hire Crane as his secretary and companion and to travel with Wise to Altadena, where Wise had rented a house for a convalescent vacation.
Crane took the job.
I would gladly emulate Odysseus,
if I could, and go down to the shadows for another hour’s conversation with Crane on the subject of poetry.
— Yvor Winters (1900-1968), poet and literary critic
Extravagant, the slow night ride
Down the street with tall, light-strung
Himalayan cedars, an electric star floating above,
You chanting loud your “Hurricane.”
Beverly Hills’ “Kingdom of Paradise”
(A teen actress, later anonymous in Strike Me Pink,
Throned before a deco sunburst of flowers)
Won in the Rose Parade, a Civil War vet the marshal.
And within the vacuum of Hollywood
You abhorred, yet floated in so gamely,
And at the posh Mar Vista house
Guiding Mr. Wise to procure his Folly
And kindly indulging Ramon Novarro,
Could you recall your Adonis,
Soon to meet you in San Pedro
(Disastrously, yes, but what of it?),
Where you wore out the poolrooms
Until the fleet shipped out for Hawaii?
Could you recall the blank pages,
The days spent in listless reading,
The glances up at Mt. Wilson,
Feeling your heart slip away
And the sun pouring past you,
You, one of the roughs?
Come down the stairs
Leading beneath my garage
To my modest brick-lined speakeasy.
We’ll toast your future subterraneously,
Memories flooding,
On your way out of town.
— Robert Savino Oventile
Local News Pasadena (LNP) publishes poems grounded in current news events from the greater Pasadena, California area. Submit your own poetry here.
