Monday, May 29, 2006

By Ahhh Grow Free

I thought I would round out my reading on Hart Crane by falling into the Clive Fisher biography, Hart Crane: A Life. So far so good. It's definetly better than John Unterecker's Voyager: A Life of Hart Crane (which concentrates way too much on Crane's family dynamics, and which over-emphasizes, I think, his relationship with his mother, relying far too much on their correspondence), but has yet to capture the lyric prose and critical prowess of Paul Mariani's The Broken Tower: The Life of Hart Crane. I'm a huge fan of Mariani's biographies, and if you haven't already, and you're looking for a great summer read, definetly check out his bio on Berryman, Dream Song: The Life of John Berryman.

Anyway, here's an interesting fact from the Fisher bio:

Hart Crane was born on 21 July, 1899. On that very same day, in Grace's [his mother's] childhood home of Oak Park, Illinois, Ernest Hemingway was born, also to a woman named Grace. Also born that day: Zelda Fitzgerald and Al Capone.

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