December 7: On
this day in 1929, Hart Crane hosted a party for Harry and Caresse Crosby,
attended by E. E. Cummings, William Carlos Williams, Malcolm Cowley, Walker
Evans, and a crowd of Crane's sailor friends. Held at Crane's apartment in full
view of the Brooklyn Bridge, the party was to celebrate Crane's completion of
his seven-year poem, The Bridge, and
its imminent publication by the Crosbys' Black Sun Press. It was also a bon voyage to the Crosbys, who were
scheduled to sail for Europe within the week, returning to the wild and wealthy
expatriate pursuits they had declared their mission—in telegrams home, for
example: PLEASE SELL 10,000 WORTH OF STOCK. WE HAVE DECIDED TO LEAD A MAD AND
EXTRAVAGANT LIFE.
Crane had written parts of The Bridge at the Crosbys' retreat outside Paris. This was a place
of champagne, polo played on donkeys, and literary projects, all of it inspired
or just funded by the Crosbys—both were high society Boston, and Harry's uncle
was J. P. Morgan. The Black Sun Press had evolved from being a vehicle for the
Crosbys' own bad poetry to being an important outlet for many famous
modernists, among them James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, and Archibald MacLeish.
Whatever else was said about their money, self-indulgence, and Jazz Age pranks,
the Crosbys were known to be serious about full living and good books.
But if Harry Crosby was among the richest of
the Lost Generation, he was also among its most lost. Behind Crosby's "black
sun" logo was a cryptic personal mythology based on darkness and light,
and a commitment to living hard and dying young. One plan was to blaze out by
airplane, another was to jump—on the morning of his death Harry asked Caresse
to jump from their hotel room. Josephine Bigelow, Crosby's mistress, was his
"Sun Princess," and one of the few who took it all seriously:
two-and-a-half days after Crane's party, Crosby and Bigelow committed double
suicide, using Harry's revolver, engraved with a sun.
Daybook is contributed by Steve King, who teaches in the English Department of Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. His literary daybook began as a radio series syndicated nationally in Canada. He can be found online at todayinliterature.com.
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