Rolfe Humphries (18941969), in addition to being an outstanding
poet, left an impressive trail as a translator, teacher, critic,
and editor. But, as Richard Gillman maintains in his introduction,
poetry was the driving force behind these other special skills and
interests. Humphries was, Gillman writes, an example of "the total
poet. . . . If ever there were poets who did in fact breathe their
art, he was one of them."
These letters for the first time illumine Humphries and his
achievements. We see him as the mentor to younger poets, including
Theodore Roethke, providing rare glimpses of poetics and the
creative process; the teacher so charmed by horseracing he
sometimes "put an exam on the blackboard . . . and then bugged out
for the track"; the "literary terrorist" whose criticism Robert
Frost never forgot and probably never forgave him for; the
translator whose Aeneid prompted W.H. Auden to call it "a service
for which no public reward could be too great"; the author of an
introduction to Ezra Pound's poems who defied Pound's demand that a
reference to his anti-Semitism be deleted. And so on and on, in all
of Humphries' surprising variety and unfailing candor.
Active in America's literary community, Humphries was a friend
of many poets and writers, including Louise Bogan, Edmund Wilson,
and Roethke. This volume takes on added meaning by completing the
published account of the relationships of these four as already
told by Roethke, Bogan, and, to a lesser extent, Wilson.
"Poets, Poetics, and Politics" is set in a period that opened
just two years before the birth of Harriet Monroe's Poetry; when it
closed, most of the twentieth century's literary giants had died.
Also in this time, many writers, Humphries included, dreamed the
dreams of communism; his letters on this subject are both
informative and absorbing.
"The view embraces modern poetics and a great deal of cultural
history. I found all of this captivating, and readers will
too."--Jay Parini, author of three books of poetry, three
novels--including the recently acclaimed "The Last Station"--and a
critical study, "Theodore Roethke: An American Romantic."
"The letters are often pungent and flavorful."--George H.
Douglas, author of six books and editor of seven, including "Edmund
Wilson's America."
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