Rhino Writing

 

The best writing comes out of desperation, puerility, except Stevens maybe, but there is some repose in Borges and Kafka and innocence in Kerouac vs. Poe’s true adventures, misadventures of an anarchist in Beasts, Imp, Man, Bottle. Crane writes with demonic energy of rejection which supercharges his lines with a mass fire of rejection, hence desire for acceptance, picking up seamen. Poe’s vindictive glee and ironic justice.  Promethean fire they spark within themselves, but not against the gods, rather in favor to them, from them, celebrated all their forbidden fruits, Lingering behind these are shadows of pedophilia, corrupted lusts. All this is the highest complement to empire, domination, the American Babylon. the myth of America. It does not follow that he sought solace with sailors because he couldn’t get a job, or lived at home. More Faustian stuff, disconnected intellect from life, the very thing Wiemar, empire, feeds on. Crane was a intellectual neurotic as much as Harold Bloom. Truly neurotic verbal fire, the very thing his mentors and peers seek themselves. “12 September, 1927, Hart Crane wrote to his patron, the banker Otto Kahn, asking for financial help. Kahn had already given him $2,000 to work on his projected epic poem The Bridge, which Crane couldn’t seem to bring to completion. He was drinking heavily, picking up sailors on the New York docks and getting into terrible brawls that sometimes culminated in a night in jail.” Perloff.