The Death of Hart

The Death of Hart

HART CRANE
July 21, 1899 - April 27, 1932

It is blood to remember; it is fire
To stammer back… It is
God -- your namelessness. And the wash --

Hart Crane was not yet thirty-three when he removed his topcoat and jumped over the rail of the Orizaba. It was just past noon, 250 miles north of Havana, and 10 miles east of the coast of Florida. “Man overboard,” someone called and the Orizaba shut down its engines. For two hours the lifeboats circled in vain, then the ship resumed its voyage. There was speculation that the author of White Buildings and The Bridge had been roughed up the night before in the sailors’ quarters after putting the moves on one of the crew. He was bloody and scratched, his eye was black and swollen, his ring and his wallet were missing. Some thought he took his life to avoid the shame and humiliation he would have to endure before docking in Manhattan. There was also the shame and humiliation of not having written a single line of poetry during his stay in Mexico, a stay made possible by one of the first Guggenheims ever granted. But most likely Hart had had enough of the daily deaths already suffered -- the blackouts and tremors, the mornings after the alcoholic ecstasies that had brought inspiration. Mexico was proof that the inspiration was all dried up. He had had enough of himself and it was time. Time to be nameless. Time to be obliterated. Time to merge with his most loyal and constant lover -- the sea.

Janet Hamill