John Allyn McAlpin Berryman (born John Allyn Smith, Jr. ; October 25, 1914 – January 7, 1972) was an American poet and scholar. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and is considered a key figure in the " confessional " school of poetry. His 77 Dream Songs (1964) won the 1965 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry .
136-522: John Berryman was born on October 25, 1914, in McAlester , Oklahoma , where he was raised until the age of ten, when his father, John Smith, a banker, and his mother, Martha (also known as Peggy), a schoolteacher, moved to Florida. In 1926, in Clearwater, Florida , when Berryman was 11 years old, his father shot and killed himself. Smith was jobless at the time, and he and Martha were filing for divorce. Berryman
272-489: A Tribune colleague stated that Crane "was not highly distinguished above any other boy of twenty who had gained a reputation for saying and writing bright things," that summer his reporting took on a more skeptical, hypocrisy-deflating tone. A storm of controversy erupted over a report he wrote on the Junior Order of United American Mechanics ' American Day Parade, titled "Parades and Entertainments." Published on August 21,
408-581: A dinghy . Crane described the ordeal in " The Open Boat ". During the final years of his life, he covered conflicts in Greece (accompanied by Cora, recognized as the first woman war correspondent) and later lived in England with her. He was befriended by writers such as Joseph Conrad and H. G. Wells . Plagued by financial difficulties and ill health, Crane died of tuberculosis in a Black Forest sanatorium in Germany at
544-471: A 2009 interview, Levine said Berryman took his class extremely seriously and that "he was entrancing ... magnetic and inspiring and very hard on [his students'] work ... [and] he was [also] the best teacher that I ever had". Berryman was fired from the University of Iowa after a fight with his landlord led to his being arrested, jailed overnight, and fined for disorderly conduct and public intoxication. His friend
680-691: A Choctaw family, who established a trading post. At one time Perryville was the capital of the Choctaw Nation and County Seat of Tobucksy County . During the American Civil War , the Choctaw allied with the Confederate States of America (CSA) as the war reached Indian Territory . A depot providing supplies to Confederate Forces in Indian Territory was set up at Perryville. On August 26, 1863,
816-657: A Florida dawn After his father's death at the rear entrance to Kipling Arms, where the Smiths rented an apartment, the poet's mother, within months, married John Angus McAlpin Berryman in New York City. The poet was renamed John Allyn McAlpin Berryman. Berryman's mother also changed her first name from Peggy to Jill. Although his stepfather later divorced his mother, Berryman and his stepfather stayed on good terms. With both his mother and stepfather working, his mother decided to send him to
952-623: A Kellett Fellowship from Columbia. He graduated in 1936. Berryman's early work formed part of a volume titled Five Young American Poets , published by New Directions in 1940. One of the other young poets included in the book was Randall Jarrell . Berryman published some of this early verse in his first book, Poems , in 1942. His first mature collection of poems, The Dispossessed , appeared six years later, published by William Sloane Associates. The book received largely negative reviews from poets like Jarrell, who wrote, in The Nation , that Berryman
1088-522: A belief in a transcendent God ... to a belief in a God who cared for the individual fates of human beings and who even interceded for them." Nevertheless, Berryman continued to abuse alcohol and struggle with depression, as he had throughout much of his life, and on the morning of January 7, 1972, he killed himself by jumping from the Washington Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis onto the west bank of
1224-690: A branch of Eastern Oklahoma State College , is also in McAlester. McAlester is served by: McAlester Regional Airport (KMLC; FAA ID: MLC), approximately three miles southwest of town, features a paved 5602’ x 100’ runway. The airport had commercial air service through Central Airlines in the 1960s. The following sites in McAlester are listed on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma : Stephen Crane Stephen Crane (November 1, 1871 – June 5, 1900)
1360-800: A character named Henry who bears a striking resemblance to Berryman, but Berryman was careful to make sure his readers realized that Henry was a fictional version of himself (or a literary alter ego ). In an interview, Berryman said, "Henry does resemble me, and I resemble Henry; but on the other hand I am not Henry. You know, I pay income tax; Henry pays no income tax. And bats come over and they stall in my hair — and fuck them, I'm not Henry; Henry doesn't have any bats." John Malcolm Brinnin , reviewing 77 Dream Songs in The New York Times , wrote that its "excellence calls for celebration". Robert Lowell wrote in The New York Review of Books , "At first
1496-466: A clear winter sky", according to H. L. Mencken , who was about 15 at the time. The novel also became popular in Britain; Joseph Conrad , a future friend of Crane, wrote that the novel "detonated... with the impact and force of a twelve-inch shell charged with a very high explosive". Appleton published two, possibly three, printings in 1895 and as many as eleven more in 1896. Although some critics considered
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#17328733533361632-494: A contract to write a series on Civil War battlefields. Because it was a wish of his to "visit the battlefield—which I was to describe—at the time of year when it was fought", Crane agreed. Visiting battlefields in Northern Virginia , including Fredericksburg , he would later produce five more Civil War tales: "Three Miraculous Soldiers", "The Veteran", "An Indiana Campaign", "An Episode of War" and "The Little Regiment". At
1768-689: A few days, Crane and Taylor settled in Ravensbrook, a plain brick villa in Oxted . Referring to themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Crane, the couple lived openly in England, but Crane concealed the relationship from friends and family in the United States. Admired in England, Crane thought himself attacked back home: "There seem so many of them in America who want to kill, bury and forget me purely out of unkindness and envy and—my unworthiness, if you choose", he wrote. Velestino
1904-599: A force of 4,500 Union soldiers crossed the Canadian River and destroyed the Confederate munitions depot at Perryville. This became known as the Battle of Perryville , Indian Territory. Union Major General James G. Blunt , finding the Confederate supplies and realizing that Perryville was a major supply depot for Confederate forces, ordered the town burned. The town was rebuilt but never reached its prewar glory or population. After
2040-565: A founder of New Haven Colony , who had migrated there from England in 1639. Stephen was named for a putative founder of Elizabethtown, New Jersey , who had, according to family tradition, come from England or Wales in 1665, as well as his great-great-grandfather Stephen Crane , a Revolutionary War patriot who served as New Jersey delegate to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia . Crane later wrote that his father "was
2176-497: A great, fine, simple mind", who had written numerous tracts on theology. Although his mother was a popular spokeswoman for the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and a highly religious woman, Crane wrote that he did not believe "she was as narrow as most of her friends or family." The young Stephen was raised primarily by his sister Agnes, 15 years his senior. The family moved to Port Jervis, New York , in 1876, where Dr. Crane became
2312-561: A highly publicized scandal after appearing as a witness in the trial of a suspected prostitute, an acquaintance named Dora Clark. Late that year, he accepted an offer to travel to Cuba as a war correspondent . As he waited in Jacksonville, Florida , for passage, he met Cora Taylor , with whom he began a lasting relationship. En route to Cuba, Crane's vessel, the SS Commodore , sank off the coast of Florida, leaving him adrift for 30 hours in
2448-463: A house obtained as part of their brother William's Hartwood Club (Association) land dealings. He used this area as the geographic setting for several short stories, which were posthumously published in a collection under the title Stephen Crane: Sullivan County Tales and Sketches . Crane showed two of these works to New York Tribune editor Willis Fletcher Johnson , a family friend, who accepted them for publication. "Hunting Wild Dogs" and "The Last of
2584-565: A minister in the Methodist Episcopal church, and Mary Helen Peck Crane , daughter of a clergyman, George Peck . He was the fourteenth and last child born to the couple. At 45, Helen Crane had suffered the deaths of her previous four children in infancy. Nicknamed "Stevie" by the family, he joined eight surviving brothers and sisters—Mary Helen, George Peck, Jonathan Townley, William Howe , Agnes Elizabeth, Edmund Byran, Wilbur Fiske, and Luther. The Cranes were descended from Jaspar Crane,
2720-479: A more suitable and profitable site for the trading post. He constructed a trading post/general store there in late 1869. The Bucklucksy general store was an immediate success, but McAlester recognized an even greater opportunity in the abundance of coal deposits in the area, so he began obtaining rights to the deposits from the Choctaws, anticipating the impending construction of a rail line through Indian Territory. As
2856-525: A novel on the subject entitled Flowers of Asphalt , which he later abandoned. The manuscript has never been recovered. After discovering that McClure's could not afford to pay him, Crane took his war novel to Irving Bacheller of the Bacheller-Johnson Newspaper Syndicate, which agreed to publish The Red Badge of Courage in serial form. From December 3 to 9, The Red Badge of Courage was published in some half-dozen newspapers in
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#17328733533362992-449: A number of newspapers, heavily edited. Crane was reportedly disgusted by the cuts, asking Linson, "Why the hell did they send me up there then? Do they want the public to think the coal mines gilded ball-rooms with the miners eating ice-cream in boiled shirt-fronts?" During the early part of his career, Crane was promoted by Elbert Hubbard , who commented on his works and featured them in his popular small magazine, The Philistine . Crane
3128-456: A poem about wanting a dog for Christmas. Entitled "I'd Rather Have –", it is his first surviving poem. Stephen was not regularly enrolled in school until January 1880, but he had no difficulty in completing two grades in six weeks. Recalling this feat, he wrote that it "sounds like the lie of a fond mother at a teaparty, but I do remember that I got ahead very fast and that father was very pleased with me." Dr. Crane died on February 16, 1880, at
3264-589: A romance with Lily Brandon Munroe, a married woman who was estranged from her husband. He did so despite being frail, undernourished, and suffering from a hacking cough – none of which prevented him from smoking cigarettes. Although Munroe later said Crane "was not a handsome man," she admired his "remarkable almond-shaped gray eyes." He begged her to elope with him, but her family opposed the match because Crane lacked money and prospects, and she declined. Their last meeting likely occurred in April 1898. Such an assemblage of
3400-537: A ship's cabin. There Crane ate one good meal a day, although friends were troubled by his "constant smoking, too much coffee, lack of food and poor teeth", as Nelson Greene put it. Living in near-poverty and greatly anticipating the publication of his books, Crane began work on two more novels: The Third Violet and George's Mother . The Black Riders was published by Copeland & Day shortly before his return to New York in May, but it received mostly negative criticism for
3536-536: A suburb of Paterson, New Jersey , in the fall of 1891. From there he made frequent trips into New York City , writing and reporting, particularly on its impoverished tenement districts. Crane focused particularly on The Bowery , a small and once prosperous neighborhood in southern Manhattan . After the Civil War, Bowery shops and mansions had given way to saloons, dance halls, brothels and flophouses , all of which Crane frequented. He later said he did so for research. He
3672-521: A talk on novelist William Dean Howells , which Crane wrote up for the Tribune . Garland became a mentor for and champion of the young writer, whose intellectual honesty impressed him. Their relationship suffered in later years, however, because Garland disapproved of Crane's alleged immorality, related to his living with a woman married to another man. Stephen moved into his brother Edmund's house in Lakeview ,
3808-781: A word. If he did change something, he would rewrite the whole page. While working on his second novel, Crane remained prolific, concentrating on publishing stories to stave off poverty; "An Experiment in Misery", based on Crane's experiences in the Bowery, was printed by the New York Press . He also wrote five or six poems a day. In early 1894, he showed some of his poems to Hamlin Garland, who said he read "some thirty in all" with "growing wonder". Although Garland and William Dean Howells encouraged him to submit his poetry for publication, Crane's free verse
3944-542: Is 7b. As of the 2000 census , there were 17,783 people, 6,584 households , and 4,187 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,133.1 inhabitants per square mile (437.5/km ). There were 7,374 housing units at an average density of 469.9 per square mile (181.4/km ). The racial makeup of the city was 74.72% White , 8.68% African American , 10.48% Native American , 0.39% Asian , 0.05% Pacific Islander , 1.29% from other races , and 4.38% from two or more races . Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.04% of
4080-563: Is a great thing to survey the army of the enemy. Just where and how it takes hold upon the heart is difficult of description." During this battle, Crane encountered "a fat waddling puppy" that he immediately claimed, dubbing it "Velestino, the Journal dog". Greece and Turkey signed an armistice on May 20; Crane and Taylor left Greece for England, taking with them Velestino and two Greek brothers as servants. After staying in Limpsfield , Surrey, for
4216-419: Is a little like eating a seven-course meal without a main course." Hirsch also wrote that, "[ Collected Poems features] a thorough nine-part introduction and a chronology as well as helpful appendixes that include Berryman's published prefaces, notes and dedications; a section of editor's notes, guidelines and procedures; and an account of the poems in their final stages of composition and publication." In 2004,
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4352-585: Is also known for his poetry, journalism, and short stories such as "The Open Boat", " The Blue Hotel ", " The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky ", and The Monster . His writing made a deep impression on 20th-century writers, most prominent among them Ernest Hemingway , and is thought to have inspired the Modernists and the Imagists . Stephen Crane was born on November 1, 1871, in Newark, New Jersey , to Jonathan Townley Crane ,
4488-665: Is considered a minor work. Berryman taught or lectured at a number of universities, including the University of Iowa (at the Writer's Workshop ), Harvard University , Princeton University , the University of Cincinnati , and the University of Minnesota , where he spent most of his career, except for his sabbatical year in 1962–3, when he taught at Brown University . Some of his illustrious students included W. D. Snodgrass , William Dickey , Donald Justice , Philip Levine , Robert Dana , Jane Cooper , Donald Finkel , and Henri Coulette . In
4624-410: Is its pungent and many-leveled portrait of a complex personality which, for all its eccentricity, stayed close to the center of the intellectual and emotional life of the mid-century and after." Citations McAlester, Oklahoma McAlester is the county seat of Pittsburg County , Oklahoma . The population was 18,363 at the time of the 2010 census, a 3.4 percent increase from 17,783 at
4760-427: Is most in need of rediscovery, then these late poems are most in need of redemption." It's a good point. Although portions of Berryman's late work are sloppy and erratic, these poems help clarify the spiritual struggle that motivates and sustains his best writing. After surveying Berryman's career and accomplishments, the editors of The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry wrote, "What seems likely to survive of his poetry
4896-454: Is not necessarily a 'Red Badge of Courage.' " A couple of weeks after her trial, Clark pressed charges of false arrest against the officer who had arrested her. The next day, the officer physically attacked Clark in the presence of witnesses. Crane, who initially went briefly to Philadelphia to escape the pressure of publicity, returned to New York to give testimony at Becker's trial despite advice given to him from Theodore Roosevelt , who
5032-527: The Syracuse Daily Standard and the New York Tribune . Declaring college "a waste of time", Crane decided to become a full-time writer and reporter. He attended a Delta Upsilon chapter meeting on June 12, 1891, but shortly afterward left college for good. In the summer of 1891, Crane often camped with friends in the nearby area of Sullivan County, New York , where his brother Edmund occupied
5168-497: The Commodore . The disaster was reported on the front pages of newspapers across the country. Rumors that the ship had been sabotaged were widely circulated but never substantiated. Portrayed favorably and heroically by the press, Crane emerged from the ordeal with his reputation enhanced, if not restored. Meanwhile, Crane's affair with Taylor blossomed. Archaeological investigations were conducted in 2002–2004 to examine and document
5304-619: The Library of America published John Berryman: Selected Poems , edited by the poet Kevin Young . In Poetry magazine, David Orr wrote: Young includes all the Greatest Hits [from Berryman's career] ... but there are also substantial excerpts from Berryman's Sonnets (the peculiar book that appeared after The Dream Songs , but was written long before) and Berryman's later, overtly religious poetry. Young argues that "if his middle, elegiac period ...
5440-474: The Mississippi River . Berryman's poetry, which often revolves around the sordid details of his personal problems, is closely associated with the "confessional" poetry movement. In this sense, his poetry had much in common with the poetry of his friend Robert Lowell . The editors of The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry note that "the influence of Yeats , Auden , Hopkins , Crane , and Pound on him
5576-586: The Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad , familiarly called the Katy Railroad, began its corporate existence in 1865 toward that end. Morton and Parsons selected a site near the Kansas ;Indian Territory border where they incorporated the settlement of Parsons, Kansas in 1871. That same year, J. J. McAlester, after buying out Reynolds's share of the trading post, journeyed with a sample of coal to
John Berryman - Misplaced Pages Continue
5712-684: The South Kent School , a private boarding school in Connecticut. Berryman then attended Columbia College , where he was president of the Philolexian Society , joined the Boar's Head Society , edited The Columbia Review , and studied under the literary scholar and poet Mark Van Doren . Berryman later credited Van Doren with sparking his interest in writing poetry seriously. For two years, Berryman also studied overseas at Clare College, Cambridge , on
5848-552: The "dream song" poems at a feverish pace and in 1968 published a second, significantly longer, volume, His Toy, His Dream, His Rest , which won the National Book Award for Poetry and the Bollingen Prize . The next year Berryman republished 77 Dreams Songs and His Toy, His Dream, His Rest as one book, The Dream Songs , in which the character Henry serves as Berryman's alter ego. In Love & Fame (1970), he dropped
5984-509: The 1965 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and solidified Berryman's standing as one of the most important poets of the post-World War II generation that included Robert Lowell , Elizabeth Bishop , and Delmore Schwartz . Soon thereafter, the press began to give Berryman a great deal of attention, as did arts organizations and even the White House, which sent him an invitation to dine with President Lyndon B. Johnson (though Berryman declined because he
6120-527: The 2000 census. The town gets its name from James Jackson McAlester , an early settler and businessman who later became lieutenant governor of Oklahoma. Known as "J. J.", McAlester married Rebecca Burney, the daughter of a full-blood Chickasaw family, which made him a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. McAlester is the home of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary , the former site of an "inside
6256-675: The Bacheller-Johnson syndicate to work as a war correspondent in Cuba as the Spanish–American War was pending, the 25-year-old Crane left New York on November 27, 1896, on a train bound for Jacksonville, Florida . Upon arrival in Jacksonville, he registered at the St. James Hotel under the alias of Samuel Carleton to maintain anonymity while seeking passage to Cuba. He toured the city and visited
6392-543: The Cuban rebels. On the St. Johns River and less than 2 miles (3.2 km) from Jacksonville, Commodore struck a sandbar in a dense fog and damaged its hull. Although towed off the sandbar the following day, it was beached again in Mayport and again damaged. A leak began in the boiler room that evening and, as a result of malfunctioning water pumps, the ship came to a standstill about 16 miles (26 km) from Mosquito Inlet. As
6528-455: The Delta Upsilon fraternity house and joined the baseball team. Attending just one class (English Literature) during the middle trimester, he remained in residence while taking no courses in the third. Concentrating on his writing, Crane began to experiment with tone and style while trying out different subjects. He published his fictional story, "Great Bugs of Onondaga," simultaneously in
6664-564: The Mexican peasants' contentment and "even refuse[d] to pity them". Returning to New York five months later, Crane joined the Lantern (alternately spelled "Lanthom" or "Lanthorne") Club organized by a group of young writers and journalists. The club, located on the roof of an old house on William Street near the Brooklyn Bridge , served as a drinking establishment and was decorated to look like
6800-503: The Mohicans" were the first of fourteen unsigned Sullivan County sketches and tales published in the Tribune between February and July 1892. Crane also showed Johnson an early draft of his first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets . Later that summer, Crane met and befriended author Hamlin Garland , who had been lecturing locally on American literature and arts. On August 17, Garland gave
6936-492: The Streets, / A Story of New York. / —By—/Stephen Crane." The name "Maggie" was added to the title later. Crane used the pseudonym "Johnston Smith" for the novella's initial publication, later telling friend and artist Corwin Knapp Linson that the nom de plume was the "commonest name I could think of. I had an editor friend named Johnson, and put in the 't', and no one could find me in the mob of Smiths". Hamlin Garland reviewed
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#17328733533367072-557: The U.S. Government built the Naval Ammunition Plant a few miles south of McAlester. In 1977, the facility became the U.S. Army Ammunition Plant. It is still the main site of ammunition production and storage for the armed forces in the United States. Two Oklahoma Department of Corrections facilities, the Oklahoma State Penitentiary and the Jackie Brannon Correctional Center, are in McAlester. McAlester
7208-516: The United States. Although it was greatly cut for syndication, Bacheller attested to its causing a stir, saying "its quality [was] immediately felt and recognized." The lead editorial in the Philadelphia Press of December 7 said that Crane "is a new name now and unknown, but everybody will be talking about him if he goes on as he has begun". At the end of January 1895, Crane left on what he called "a very long and circuitous newspaper trip" to
7344-637: The West Indies. Spending three weeks in New York, he completed "The Open Boat" and periodically visited Port Jervis to see family. By this time, however, blockades had formed along the Florida coast as tensions rose with Spain, and Crane concluded that he would never be able to travel to Cuba. He sold "The Open Boat" to Scribner's for $ 300 in early March. Determined to work as a war correspondent, Crane signed on with William Randolph Hearst 's New York Journal to cover
7480-425: The affair to his wife. He eventually published the work, Berryman's Sonnets , in 1967. It includes over one hundred sonnets. In 1950, Berryman published a biography of the fiction writer and poet Stephen Crane , whom he greatly admired. The book was followed by his next significant poem, Homage to Mistress Bradstreet (1956), a conversation with the 17th-century poet Anne Bradstreet which featured illustrations by
7616-450: The age of 24, Crane, who was reveling in his success, became involved in a highly publicized case involving a suspected prostitute named Dora Clark. At 2 a.m. on September 16, 1896, he escorted two chorus girls and Clark from New York City's Broadway Garden, a popular "resort" where he had interviewed the women for a series he was writing. As Crane saw one woman safely to a streetcar , a plainclothes policeman named Charles Becker arrested
7752-567: The age of 28. Crane wrote his first known story, "Uncle Jake and the Bell Handle", when he was 14. In late 1885, he enrolled at Pennington Seminary , a ministry-focused coeducational boarding school 7 miles (11 km) north of Trenton . His father had been principal there from 1849 to 1858. Soon after her youngest son left for school, Mrs. Crane began suffering what the Asbury Park Shore Press reported as "a temporary aberration of
7888-515: The age of 28. At the time of his death, Crane was considered an important figure in American literature. After he was nearly forgotten for two decades, critics revived interest in his life and work. Crane's writing is characterized by vivid intensity, distinctive dialects , and irony . Common themes involve fear, spiritual crises and social isolation. Although recognized primarily for The Red Badge of Courage , which has become an American classic, Crane
8024-636: The age of 60; Stephen was eight years old. Some 1,400 people attended his funeral, more than double the size of his congregation. After her husband's death, Mrs. Crane moved to Roseville , near Newark, leaving Stephen in the care of his older brother Edmund, with whom the young boy lived with cousins in Sussex County . He next lived with his brother William, a lawyer, in Port Jervis for several years. His older sister Helen took him to Asbury Park to be with their brother Townley and his wife, Fannie. Townley
8160-581: The artist Ben Shahn and was Berryman's first poem to receive "national attention" and a positive response from critics. Edmund Wilson wrote that it was "the most distinguished long poem by an American since T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land ." When Homage to Mistress Bradstreet and Other Poems was published in 1959, the poet Conrad Aiken praised the book's shorter poems, which he found superior to "Homage to Mistress Bradstreet". Despite his third book of verse's relative success, Berryman's great poetic breakthrough occurred with 77 Dream Songs (1964). It won
8296-408: The book as "so much trash". Crane was pleased that the book was "making some stir". In contrast to the reception for Crane's poetry, The Red Badge of Courage was welcomed with acclaim after its publication by Appleton in September 1895. For the next four months, the book was in the top six on bestseller lists around the country. It arrived on the literary scene "like a flash of lightning out of
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#17328733533368432-529: The brain aches and freezes at so much darkness, disorder and oddness. After a while, the repeated situations and their racy jabber become more and more enjoyable, although even now I wouldn't trust myself to paraphrase accurately at least half the sections." In response to the perceived difficulty of the dream songs, in his 366th "Dream Song", Berryman facetiously wrote, "These Songs are not meant to be understood, you understand. / They are only meant to terrify & comfort". In His Toy, His Dream, His Rest , many of
8568-414: The captain) foundered off the coast of Florida for a day and a half before trying to land the dinghy at Daytona Beach . The small boat overturned in the surf, forcing the exhausted men to swim to shore; one died. Having lost the gold given to him for his journey, Crane wired Cora Taylor for help. She traveled to Daytona and returned to Jacksonville with Crane the next day, only four days after he had left on
8704-406: The city was $ 28,631, and the median income for a family was $ 36,480. Males had a median income of $ 29,502 versus $ 19,455 for females. The per capita income for the city was $ 16,694. About 16.1% of families and 19.4% of the population were below the poverty line , including 26.8% of those under age 18 and 11.6% of those age 65 or over. Agriculture and coal mining supported the city's economy around
8840-524: The city, leaving residents without power and water for more than a week. McAlester is at the intersection of U.S. Route 69 and U.S. Route 270 , in Pittsburg County . According to the United States Census Bureau , the city has a total area of 41 square miles (110 km ), of which 40.6 square miles (105 km ) is land. It has a humid subtropical climate ( Cfa ) and average monthly temperatures range from 40.0 °F (4.4 °C) in January to 81.7 °F (27.6 °C) in July. The hardiness zone
8976-416: The coal deposits from engineer Oliver Weldon, who served with McAlester during the war. Weldon had worked for the U.S. surveying Indian Territory before the war and knew of the coal deposits. Hearing of the railroad plans to extend through Indian Territory and knowing that rich deposits of coal were in an area north of the town of Perryville, McAlester convinced Reynolds and Hannaford that Bucklucksy would be
9112-407: The coal deposits in both the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations). McAlester quickly obtained land near the intersection of the north–south and east–west rail lines, where he opened a second general store and continued selling coal to the railroads. In 1885, Fritz Sittle (Sittel), a Choctaw citizen by marriage and one of the first settlers in the area, urged visiting newspaperman Edwin D. Chadick to pursue
9248-405: The coal mines. Miners of Italian origin arrived in McAlester in 1874. Chadick and his investors purchased land to the south of McAlester's General Store, and a natural trading crossroads formed where the two rail lines crossed, quickly becoming a bustling community called South McAlester. South McAlester grew much more rapidly than North McAlester. The 1900 census showed a population of 3,470 for
9384-405: The coming of the railroad, businesses in nearby Perryville began relocating to be near the McAlester Rail Depot, marking the end of Perryville and the beginning of McAlester. On August 22, 1872, J. J. McAlester married Rebecca Burney (1841–1919). She was a member of the Chickasaw Nation, which made it possible for McAlester to gain citizenship and the right to own property (including mineral rights to
9520-438: The concentration of an extended lyric with the erudition and amplitude of a historical novel". Berryman's major poetic breakthrough came after the first volume of The Dream Songs , 77 Dream Songs , in 1964. The dream song form consists of short, 18-line lyric poems in three stanzas . They are in free verse, with some stanzas containing irregular rhyme. 77 Dream Songs (and its sequel His Toy, His Dream, His Rest ) centers on
9656-467: The dog sickened and died soon after their arrival in England, on August 1. Crane, who had a great love for dogs, wrote an emotional letter to a friend an hour after the dog's death, stating that "for eleven days we fought death for him, thinking nothing of anything but his life." The Limpsfield-Oxted area was home to members of the socialist Fabian Society and a magnet for writers such as Edmund Gosse , Ford Madox Ford and Edward Garnett . Crane also met
9792-678: The dream songs are elegies for Berryman's recently deceased poet friends, including Delmore Schwartz , Randall Jarrell , and Theodore Roethke . The volume contains four times as many poems as the previous one, and covers more subject matter. For instance, in addition to the elegies, Berryman writes about his trip to Ireland, as well as his own burgeoning literary fame. Berryman's last two volumes of poetry, Love & Fame and Delusions, Etc. , featured free-verse poems that were much more straightforward and less idiosyncratic than The Dream Songs . Before Love & Fame 's publication, Berryman sent his manuscript to several peers for feedback, including
9928-624: The east–west California Road with the north–south Texas Road formed a natural point of settlement. At the time of its founding, the site was located in Tobucksy County , a part of the Moshulatubbee District of the Choctaw Nation . Alyssia Young, who emigrated from Mississippi to the Indian Territory, first established a settlement at the intersection of the two roads in 1838. The town was named Perryville after James Perry, member of
10064-472: The end of the Civil War in 1865, Captain J. J. McAlester obtained a job with the trading company of Reynolds and Hannaford. McAlester convinced the firm to locate a general store at Tupelo in the Choctaw Nation. He had learned of coal deposits in Indian Territory during the war while serving as a captain with the 22nd Arkansas Infantry Regiment (Confederate). At Fort Smith, Arkansas , before going to work with Reynolds and Hannaford, McAlester had received maps of
10200-470: The event. In a concluding note, Hubbard commented, "to the mass, he is known, if at all, only as the author of The Black Riders in verse, and of the Red Badge of Courage in prose; efforts, both, that challenge study and baffle understanding rather than soothe superficiality or pander to the wishes of mental indolence." Sources report that following an encounter with a male prostitute that spring, Crane began
10336-429: The exposed remains of a wreck near Ponce Inlet, Florida , conjectured to be that of the SS Commodore . The collected data, and other accumulated evidence, finally substantiated the identification of the Commodore . Despite contentment in Jacksonville and the need for rest after his ordeal, Crane became restless. He left Jacksonville on January 11 for New York City, where he applied for a passport to Cuba, Mexico and
10472-505: The first railroad to extend its line to the northern border of Indian Territory, the Union Pacific Railway Southern Branch earned right of way and a liberal bonus of land to extend the line to Texas . Several New York businessmen, including Levi P. Morton , Levi Parsons , August Belmont , J. Pierpont Morgan , George Denison and John D. Rockefeller , were interested in extending rail through Indian Territory, and
10608-478: The former and 642 for the latter. The two towns operated as somewhat separate communities until 1907, when the United States Congress passed an act joining them as a single municipality, the action being required since the towns were under federal jurisdiction in Indian Territory. McAlester and South McAlester were combined under the single name McAlester, with South McAlester officeholders as officials of
10744-451: The glory of war and then quickly becomes disillusioned, Crane borrowed the private's surname, "Fleming", from his sister-in-law's maiden name. He later said that the first paragraphs came to him with "every word in place, every comma, every period fixed". He wrote from around midnight until four or five in the morning. Because he could not afford a typewriter, he wrote carefully in ink on legal-sized paper, seldom crossing through or interlining
10880-401: The idea of writing a war novel overtook him. He would later state that he "had been unconsciously working the detail of the story out through most of his boyhood" and had imagined "war stories ever since he was out of knickerbockers ". This novel would ultimately become The Red Badge of Courage . A river, amber-tinted in the shadow of its banks, purled at the army's feet; and at night, when
11016-498: The impending Greco-Turkish conflict . He brought along Taylor, who sold the Hotel de Dream. On March 20, they sailed first to England, where Crane was warmly received. They arrived in Athens in early April; between April 17 (when Turkey declared war on Greece) and April 22, Crane wrote his first published report of the war, "An Impression of the 'Concert' ". When he left for Epirus in
11152-452: The largest fraternity, Delta Upsilon . He also joined both rival literary societies, named for (George) Washington and (Benjamin) Franklin. Crane infrequently attended classes and ended the semester with grades for four of his seven courses. After one semester, Crane transferred to Syracuse University , where he enrolled as a non-degree candidate in the College of Liberal Arts. He roomed in
11288-492: The local brothels . Within days he met 31-year-old Cora Taylor , proprietor of the downtown bawdy house Hotel de Dream. Born into a respectable Boston family, Taylor (whose legal name was Cora Ethel Stewart) had already had two brief marriages; her first husband, Vinton Murphy, divorced her on grounds of adultery. In 1889, she had married British Captain Donald William Stewart . She left him in 1892 for another man, but
11424-512: The manuscript of Maggie to Richard Watson Gilder , who rejected it for publication in The Century Magazine . Crane decided to publish it privately, with money he had inherited from his mother. The novella was published in late February or early March 1893 by a small printing shop that usually printed medical books and religious tracts. The typewritten title page for the Library of Congress copyright application read simply: "A Girl of
11560-496: The mask of Henry to write more plainly about his life. Responses to the poems from critics and most of Berryman's peers ranged from tepid to hostile; the collection is now generally "considered a minor work". Henry reappeared in a couple of poems published in Delusions Etc. (1972), Berryman's last collection, which focused on his religious concerns and spiritual rebirth. The book was published posthumously and, like Love & Fame ,
11696-473: The memory of John Berryman". Berryman's Collected Poems--1937-1971 , edited and introduced by Charles Thornbury, was published in 1989. Robert Giroux decided to omit The Dream Songs from the collection. In his review of the Collected Poems , Edward Hirsch said of this decision, "It is obviously practical to continue to publish the 385 dream songs separately, but reading the Collected Poems without them
11832-452: The mind." She had apparently recovered by early 1886, but later that year, her son, 23-year-old Luther Crane, died after falling in front of an oncoming train while working as a railroad flagman. It was the fourth death in six years among Stephen's immediate family. After two years, Crane left Pennington for Claverack College , a quasi-military school. He later looked back on his time at Claverack as "the happiest period of my life although I
11968-725: The morning, rose with his gun and went outdoors by my window and did what was needed. I cannot read that wretched mind, so strong & so undone. I've always tried. I–I'm trying to forgive whose frantic passage, when he could not live an instant longer, in the summer dawn left Henry to live on. Similarly, in Dream Song #384, Berryman wrote: The marker slants, flowerless, day's almost done, I stand above my father's grave with rage, often, often before I've made this awful pilgrimage to one who cannot visit me, who tore his page out: I come back for more, I spit upon this dreadful bankers grave who shot his heart out in
12104-675: The nature of his spiritual rebirth in poems like "Eleven Addresses to the Lord" (which Lowell thought one of Berryman's best poems and "one of the great poems of the age") and "Certainty Before Lunch". In 1977 John Haffenden published Henry's Fate & Other Poems , a selection of dream songs that Berryman wrote after His Toy, His Dream, His Rest but did not publish. According to Time magazine's review, "Posthumous selections of unpublished poetry should be viewed suspiciously. The dead poet may have had good aesthetic reasons for keeping some of his work to himself. Fortunately, Henry's Fate does not malign
12240-596: The northwest, Taylor remained in Athens, where she became the war's first woman war correspondent. She wrote under the pseudonym "Imogene Carter" for the New York Journal , a job that Crane had secured for her. They wrote frequently, traveling throughout the country separately and together. The first large battle that Crane witnessed was the Turks' assault on General Constantine Smolenski's Greek forces at Velestino. Crane wrote: "It
12376-419: The other two for solicitation ; Crane was threatened with arrest when he tried to interfere. One of the women was released after Crane confirmed her erroneous claim that she was his wife, but Clark was charged and taken to the precinct. Against the advice of the arresting sergeant, Crane made a statement confirming Dora Clark's innocence, stating that "I only know that while with me she acted respectably, and that
12512-473: The paper did not publish any of Crane's work after 1892. Crane struggled to make a living as a freelance writer, contributing sketches and feature articles to various New York newspapers. In October 1892, he moved into a rooming house in Manhattan whose boarders were a group of medical students. During this time, he expanded or entirely reworked Maggie: A Girl of the Streets . In the winter of 1893, Crane took
12648-539: The pastor of Drew Methodist Church, a position that he retained until his death. As a child, Crane was often sickly and afflicted by constant colds . When the boy was almost two, his father wrote in his diary that his youngest son became "so sick that we are anxious about him." Despite his fragile nature, Crane was an intelligent child who taught himself to read before the age of four. At the age of three, while imitating his brother Townley's writing, he asked his mother, "how do you spell O ?" In December 1879, Crane wrote
12784-496: The poem). Joel Athey noted, "This difficult poem, a tribute to the Puritan poet of colonial America , took Berryman five years to complete and demanded much from the reader when it first appeared with no notes. The Times Literary Supplement hailed it as a path-breaking masterpiece; poet Robert Fitzgerald called it 'the poem of his generation.'" Edward Hirsch observed that "the 57 stanzas of Homage to Mistress Bradstreet combine
12920-653: The poems' unconventional style and use of free verse. A piece in the Bookman called Crane "the Aubrey Beardsley of poetry" and a commentator from the Chicago Daily Inter-Ocean stated that "there is not a line of poetry from the opening to the closing page. Whitman 's Leaves of Grass were luminous in comparison. Poetic lunacy would be a better name for the book." In June, the New York Tribune dismissed
13056-444: The poet Allen Tate helped him get the job at the University of Minnesota . Berryman was married three times. According to the editors of The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry , he lived turbulently. During one of the many times he was hospitalized for alcohol abuse, in 1970, he experienced what he termed "a sort of religious conversion". According to his biographer Paul Mariani , Berryman experienced "a sudden and radical shift from
13192-518: The poets Adrienne Rich and Richard Wilbur , both of whom were disappointed with the poems, which they considered inferior to those of The Dream Songs . But some of Berryman's old friends and supporters, including Lowell, the novelist Saul Bellow , and the poet William Meredith , offered high praise for a number of the Love & Fame poems. Love & Fame and Delusions, Etc. were more openly "confessional" than Berryman's earlier verse, and also explored
13328-470: The policeman's charge was false." On the basis of Crane's testimony, Clark was discharged. The media seized upon the story; news spread to Philadelphia, Boston and beyond, with papers focusing on Crane's courage. The Stephen Crane story, as it became known, soon became a source for ridicule; the Chicago Dispatch quipped that "Stephen Crane is respectfully informed that association with women in scarlet
13464-402: The population. There were 6,584 households, out of which 29.1% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.6% were married couples living together, 13.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 36.4% were non-families. 33.7% of all households were made up of individuals, and 16.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older . The average household size
13600-456: The possibility of an east–west rail line to run through the coal mining district at Krebs that would connect with the north–south line at McAlester. Chadick eventually found financing and established the Choctaw Coal and Railway in 1888, but was unable to come to terms with J. J. McAlester over the issue of right of way . In the 1870s, miners from Pennsylvania arrived in McAlester to work in
13736-635: The railroad town in hopes of persuading officials to locate the line near his store at Bucklucksy. The trading post's location on the Texas Road weighed in its favor, given that the Katy line construction roughly followed the Shawnee Trail – Texas Road route south to the Red River . The line reached Bucklucksy in 1872, and Katy Railroad officials named the railway stop McAlester ( Nesbitt 1933 , pp. 760–61). With
13872-434: The report juxtaposes the "bronzed, slope-shouldered, uncouth" marching men "begrimed with dust" and the spectators dressed in "summer gowns, lace parasols, tennis trousers, straw hats and indifferent smiles." Believing they were being ridiculed, some JOUAM marchers were outraged and wrote to the editor. The owner of the Tribune , Whitelaw Reid , was that year's Republican vice-presidential candidate, and this likely increased
14008-822: The sensation I thought it would make. It fell flat. Nobody seemed to notice it or care for it... Poor Maggie! She was one of my first loves." In March 1893, Crane spent hours in Linson's studio having his portrait painted. He became fascinated with issues of the Century that were largely devoted to famous battles and military leaders from the Civil War . Frustrated with the dryly written stories, Crane stated, "I wonder that some of those fellows don't tell how they felt in those scraps. They spout enough of what they did , but they're as emotionless as rocks." Crane returned to these magazines during subsequent visits to Linson's studio, and eventually
14144-529: The sensitivity of the paper's management to the issue. Although Townley wrote a piece for the Asbury Park Daily Press in his brother's defense, the Tribune quickly apologized to its readers, calling Stephen Crane's piece "a bit of random correspondence, passed inadvertently by the copy editor." Hamlin Garland and biographer John Barry attested that Crane told them he had been dismissed by the Tribune . Although Willis Fletcher Johnson later denied this,
14280-434: The ship took on more water, Crane described the engine room as resembling "a scene at this time taken from the middle kitchen of hades ." The Commodore ' s lifeboats were lowered early on January 2, 1897, and the ship ultimately sank at 7 a.m. Crane was one of the last to leave in a 10-foot (3.0 m) dinghy . In an ordeal that he recounted in the short story " The Open Boat ", Crane and three other men (including
14416-474: The single town. Designation as a single community by the United States Post Office came on July 1, 1907, nearly five months before Oklahoma statehood, which caused a redrawing of county lines and designations such that the majority of Tobucksy County fell within the new lines of Pittsburg County . The city had 8,144 inhabitants upon statehood, more than a fourth of whom were foreign-born. McAlester
14552-516: The spraddle-legged men of the middle class, whose hands were bent and shoulders stooped from delving and constructing, had never appeared to an Asbury Park summer crowd, and the latter was vaguely amused. — Stephen Crane, account of the JOUAM parade as it appeared in the Tribune Between July 2 and September 11, 1892, Crane published more than ten news reports on Asbury Park affairs. Although
14688-519: The spring of 1894, Crane offered the finished manuscript of The Red Badge of Courage to McClure's Magazine , which had become the foremost magazine for Civil War literature. While McClure's delayed giving him an answer on his novel, they offered him an assignment writing about the Pennsylvania coal mines . "In the Depths of a Coal Mine", a story with pictures by Linson, was syndicated by McClure's in
14824-415: The stream had become of a sorrowful blackness, one could see across it the red, eyelike gleam of hostile camp-fires set in the low brows of distant hills. — Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage Crane wished to show how it felt to be in a war by writing "a psychological portrayal of fear". Conceiving his story from the point of view of a young private who is at first filled with boyish dreams of
14960-483: The trial ended on October 16, the arresting officer was exonerated, and Crane's reputation was ruined. None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colors of the sea. — Stephen Crane, "The Open Boat" Given $ 700 in Spanish gold by
15096-439: The turn of the 20th century. Cotton was the main cash crop, and McAlester had three cotton gins and one cotton compress. Then a boll weevil infestation destroyed local cotton production. Meanwhile, railroads converted from coal to oil as their primary fuel, which marked the decline of the coal industry in the area. The Oklahoma State Penitentiary is a major source of employment and revenue in McAlester. During World War II,
15232-621: The walls" prison rodeo that ESPN's SportsCenter once broadcast. The prison's nickname, Big Mac, was derived from its location in the town. McAlester is home to many of the employees of the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant . This facility makes the majority of the bombs used by the United States military. In 1998 McAlester became the home of the Defense Ammunition Center (DAC), which moved from Savanna, Illinois , to McAlester Army Ammunition Plant. The crossing of
15368-466: The west. While writing feature articles for the Bacheller syndicate, he traveled to Saint Louis, Missouri , Nebraska , New Orleans , Galveston, Texas , and Mexico City . Irving Bacheller would later state that he "sent Crane to Mexico for new color", which the author found in the form of Mexican slum life. Whereas he found the lower class in New York pitiful, he was impressed by the "superiority" of
15504-459: The work in the June 1893 issue of The Arena , calling it "the most truthful and unhackneyed study of the slums I have yet read, fragment though it is". Despite this early praise, Crane became depressed and destitute from having spent $ 869 for 1,100 copies of a novel that did not sell; he ended up giving a hundred copies away. He would later remember "how I looked forward to publication and pictured
15640-422: The work overly graphic and profane, it was widely heralded for its realistic portrayal of war and unique writing style. The Detroit Free Press declared that The Red Badge would give readers "so vivid a picture of the emotions and the horrors of the battlefield that you will pray your eyes may never look upon the reality." Wanting to capitalize on the success of The Red Badge , McClure Syndicate offered Crane
15776-429: Was Police Commissioner and a new acquaintance of Crane. The defense targeted Crane: police raided his apartment and interviewed people who knew him, trying to find incriminating evidence to lessen the effect of his testimony. A vigorous cross-examination sought to portray Crane as a man of dubious morals; while the prosecution proved that he frequented brothels, Crane claimed this was merely for research purposes. After
15912-488: Was "a complicated, nervous, and intelligent [poet]" whose work was too derivative of W. B. Yeats . Berryman later concurred with this assessment of his early work, saying, "I didn't want to be like Yeats; I wanted to be Yeats." In October 1942, Berryman married Eileen Mulligan (later Simpson) in a ceremony at St. Patrick's Cathedral , with Van Doren as his best man. The couple moved to Beacon Hill , and Berryman lectured at Harvard. The marriage ended in 1953 (the divorce
16048-409: Was 2.31 and the average family size was 2.93. In the city, the population was spread out, with 22.2% under the age of 18, 8.7% from 18 to 24, 30.4% from 25 to 44, 20.8% from 45 to 64, and 18.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females, there were 107.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 108.2 males. The median income for a household in
16184-944: Was a professional journalist; he headed the Long Branch department of both the New-York Tribune and the Associated Press , and also served as editor of the Asbury Park Shore Press . Agnes, another Crane sister, joined the siblings in New Jersey . She took a position at Asbury Park's intermediate school and moved in with Helen to care for the young Stephen. Within a couple of years, the Crane family suffered more losses. First, Townley and his wife lost their two young children. His wife Fannie died of Bright's disease in November 1883. Agnes Crane became ill and died on June 10, 1884, of meningitis at
16320-445: Was active in a fraternity, he left Syracuse University in 1891 to work as a reporter and writer. Crane's first novel was the 1893 Bowery tale Maggie: A Girl of the Streets , generally considered by critics to be the first work of American literary Naturalism. He won international acclaim for his Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage (1895), considered a masterpiece by different critics and writers. In 1896, Crane endured
16456-417: Was aloof, reserved and not generally popular. Although academically weak, Crane gained experience at Claverack that provided background (and likely some anecdotes from the Civil War veterans on the staff) for The Red Badge of Courage . In mid-1888, Crane became his brother Townley's assistant at a New Jersey shore news bureau, working there every summer until 1892. Crane's first publication under his byline
16592-1018: Was also previously home to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma in the Carl Albert Federal Building . Another non-profit called McAlester Main Street , one of the various national Main Street Programs , is a public-private partnership with the City of McAlester, the Oklahoma Department of Commerce, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which works to preserve and revitalize Old Town and Downtown McAlester. McAlester Public Schools operates public schools. The McAlester Public Library
16728-540: Was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Prolific throughout his short life, he wrote notable works in the Realist tradition as well as early examples of American Naturalism and Impressionism . He is recognized by modern critics as one of the most innovative writers of his generation. The ninth surviving child of Methodist parents, Crane began writing at the age of four and had several articles published by 16. Having little interest in university studies though he
16864-657: Was an article on the explorer Henry M. Stanley 's quest to find the Scottish missionary David Livingstone in Africa. It appeared in the February 1890 Claverack College Vidette . Within a few months, Crane was persuaded by his family to forgo a military career and transfer to Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania , to pursue a mining engineering degree. He registered at Lafayette on September 12; he promptly took up baseball again and joined
17000-420: Was attracted to the human nature found in the slums, considering it "open and plain, with nothing hidden." Believing nothing honest and unsentimental had been written about the Bowery, Crane became determined to do so himself; this was the setting of his first novel. On December 7, 1891, Crane's mother died at the age of 64, and the 20-year-old appointed Edmund as his guardian. In the spring of 1892, Crane began
17136-500: Was built in 1970. As of 2010 the city has plans to build a new library. The Friends of the McAlester Public Library is financing the new branch. McAlester includes Kiamichi Technology Center , which has over 300 students per school year. There is also an extension of Eastern Oklahoma State College that partners with Southeastern Oklahoma State University and East Central University. The Wanda Bass Higher Education Center,
17272-495: Was customary among other students, he took to signing his name "Stephen T. Crane" in order "to win recognition as a regular fellow". Crane was seen as friendly, but also moody and rebellious. He sometimes skipped class to play baseball, a game in which he starred as catcher . He was also greatly interested in the school's military training. He rose rapidly in the ranks of the student battalion. One classmate described him as "indeed physically attractive without being handsome", but he
17408-495: Was formalized in 1956), when Simpson finally grew weary of Berryman's affairs and acting as "net-holder" during his self-destructive personal crises. Simpson memorialized her time with Berryman and his circle in her 1982 book Poets in Their Youth . In 1947, Berryman started an affair with a married woman named Chris Haynes, documented in a long sonnet sequence that he refrained from publishing in part because that would have revealed
17544-472: Was haunted by his father's death for the rest of his life and wrote about his struggle to come to terms with it in much of his poetry. In "Dream Song #143", he wrote, "That mad drive [to commit suicide] wiped out my childhood. I put him down/while all the same on forty years I love him/stashed in Oklahoma/besides his brother Will". In "Dream Song #145", he also wrote of his father: he only, very early in
17680-584: Was in Ireland at the time). Berryman was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1967, and that same year Life magazine ran a feature story on him. Also that year the newly created National Endowment for the Arts awarded him a $ 10,000 grant (when a Minneapolis reporter asked him about the award, he said that he had never heard of NEA before receiving it). Berryman also continued to work on
17816-409: Was not aware of it." A classmate remembered him as a highly literate but erratic student, lucky to pass examinations in math and science, and yet "far in advance of his fellow students in his knowledge of History and Literature", his favorite subjects. While he held an impressive record on the drill field and baseball diamond, Crane generally did not excel in the classroom. Not having a middle name, as
17952-590: Was on the route of the Jefferson Highway established in 1915, with that road running more than 2,300 miles from Winnipeg, Manitoba to New Orleans, Louisiana. McAlester was the site of the 2004 trial of Terry Nichols on Oklahoma state charges related to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing . On December 25, 2000, an ice storm hit the area, leaving residents without electrical service and water for more than two weeks; in January 2007, another devastating ice storm crippled
18088-471: Was still legally married. By the time Crane arrived, Taylor had been in Jacksonville for two years. She lived a bohemian lifestyle , owned a hotel of assignation, and was a respected local figure. The two spent much time together while Crane awaited his departure. He was finally cleared to leave for the Cuban port of Cienfuegos on New Year's Eve aboard the SS Commodore . The ship sailed from Jacksonville with 27 or 28 men and supplies and ammunition for
18224-499: Was strong, and Berryman's own voice—by turns nerve-racked and sportive—took some time to be heard." Berryman's first major work, in which he began to develop his own style, was Homage to Mistress Bradstreet . In the long, title poem, which first appeared in Partisan Review in 1953, Berryman addresses the 17th-century American poet Anne Bradstreet , combining her life history with his fantasies about her (and inserting himself into
18360-455: Was the guest of honor at the first annual meeting of the Society of Philistines in 1895 when he was relatively unknown. Although Crane was severely teased during the meeting, they remained friendly and their association proved mutually beneficial. Seven of Crane’s poems and a short story were published in the first issue of The Roycroft Quarterly (another of Hubbard’s magazines) which commemorated
18496-424: Was too unconventional for most. After brief wrangling between poet and publisher, Copeland & Day accepted Crane's first book of poems, The Black Riders and Other Lines , although it would not be published until after The Red Badge of Courage . He received a 10 percent royalty and the publisher assured him that the book would be in a form "more severely classic than any book ever yet issued in America". In
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