Alfred Francis Kreymborg (1883–1966) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, literary editor and anthologist. In his autobiography he refers to himself in the third person by the nicknames 'Ollie' and 'Krimmie'.^[1] 1883 (MDCCCLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link goes to calendar) // Events January January 1 - In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa ousts president David Dacko and takes over the Central African Republic. ...

Family

Married to Dorothy "Dot" Bloom (second marriage)

Early life and associations

He was born in New York City, and he spent most of his life there and in New Jersey. He was an active figure in Greenwich Village and frequented the Liberal Club.^[2] Nickname: The Big Apple Motto: Official website: City of New York Location Location in the state of New York Government Counties (Boroughs) Bronx (The Bronx) New York (Manhattan) Queens (Queens) Kings (Brooklyn) Richmond (Staten Island) Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) Geographical characteristics Area Total 468. ... Official language(s) None defined, English de facto Capital Trenton Largest city Newark Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 47th 22,608 km² 110 km 240 km 14. ... The Washington Square Arch Greenwich Village (pronounced Grennich Village; also known simply the Village) is a largely residential area on the west side of downtown (southern) Manhattan in New York City. ...

He was the first literary figure to be included in Alfred Stieglitz's 291 circle^[3], and was briefly associated with the Ferrer Center where Man Ray was studying under Robert Henri. From 1913 to 1914, Kreymborg and Man Ray worked together to bring out ten issues^[4] of the first of Kreymborg's prominent modernist magazines: The Glebe. Ezra Pound — who had heard about The Glebe from Kreymborg's friend John Cournos^[5] — sent Kreymborg the manuscript of Des Imagistes in the summer of 1913^[6] and this famous first anthology of Imagism was published as the fifth issue of The Glebe^[7]. Alfred Stieglitz, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1935 Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American-born photographer who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an acceptable art form alongside painting and sculpture. ... The Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession (later known as 291) was a tiny fine art photography gallery in New York City created and run by Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen from November 1905 to 1917. ... For other things called Man Ray, see Man Ray (disambiguation) Man Ray photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1934 Man Ray (August 27, 1890–November 18, 1976) was an American Dada and Surrealist artist. ... Robert Henri, by Gertrude Kasebier (1900) Snow in New York 1902, oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC Robert Henri (June 25, 1865-1929) was an American painter notable for his teaching and leadership of the Ashcan School movement in art. ... This article focuses on the cultural movement labeled modernism or the modern movement. See also: Modernism (Roman Catholicism) or Modernist Christianity; Modernismo for specific art movement(s) in Spain and Catalonia. ... The Glebe was a literary magazine edited by Alfred Kreymborg and Man Ray from 1913 to 1914. ... Ezra Pound in 1913. ... John Cournos (1881 - 1966) was an American writer from a Russian-Jewish background; his family emigrated when he was aged 10. ... Des Imagistes was the first anthology of the Imagism movement. ... Ezra Pound, one of the prime movers of Imagism. ...

In 1913 Man Ray and Samuel Halpert, another of Henri's students, started an artist's colony in Ridgefield, New Jersey.^[8] This colony was often also referred to as 'Grantwood' and comprised a number of clapboard shacks on a bluff.^[9] Kreymborg moved to Ridgefield and launched Others: A Magazine of the New Verse with Skipwith Cannell, and Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams in 1915. Pound had, along with the Des Imagistes poems, written to Kreymborg suggesting that he contact 'old Bull' Williams^[10], that is William Carlos Williams. Williams did not live far from Ridgefield, and he became involved in the magazine. Soon there was a group of artists associated with the magazine. Marianne Moore came to Ridgefield for picnics, and in 1915 Marcel Duchamp moved in.^[11] Regarding Marianne Moore, she was asked in an interview whether Alfred Kreymborg was her American discoverer, to which she replied, "It could be said, perhaps; he did all he could to promote me. Miss Monroe and the Aldingtons had asked my simultaneously to contribute to Poetry and The Egoist in 1915. Alfred Kreymborg was not inhibited. I was a little different from the others. He thought that I might pass as a novelty, I guess."^[12] Samuel Halpert (1884 – 1930) was a United States painter. ... Map highlighting Ridgefields location within Bergen County. ... Skipwith Cannell (1887 - 1957) was an American poet associated with the Imagist group. ... Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American Modernist poet. ... William Carlos Williams Dr. William Carlos Williams (sometimes known as WCW) (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963), was an American poet closely associated with Modernism and Imagism. ... William Carlos Williams Dr. William Carlos Williams (sometimes known as WCW) (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963), was an American poet closely associated with Modernism and Imagism. ... Others was a group of avante-garde artists in New York formed after World War I. Poet Alfred Kreymborg and artist Man Ray founded the group, centered in Ridgefield, NJ. Through the group, American writers and artists came into contact and found collaboration with emigree artists who had fled from... Marianne Moore photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1948 Marianne Moore (November 15, 1887 - February 5, 1972) was a Modernist American poet and writer. ... Marcel Duchamp. ... Marianne Moore photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1948 Marianne Moore (November 15, 1887 - February 5, 1972) was a Modernist American poet and writer. ...

1915 also saw the publication of a story in part based on a personal experience. The story was titled 'Edna' and published as Edna: The Girl of the Street; by the Greenwich Village entrepreneur Guido Bruno; the subtitle was Bruno's idea, added without the consent of the author.^[13] John Sumner of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice raised a stir; there was a court case which led to the Bruno's imprisonment. The attendant morals row drew in George Bernard Shaw and Frank Harris: Harris made an impassioned statement in court defending the publisher.^[14] Guido Bruno (1884–1942) was a well-known Greenwich Village character, sometimes called the Barnum of Bohemia. He was based at his Garret on Washington Square. ... The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (SSV) was founded in 1873 by Anthony Comstock and his supporters in the Young Mens Christian Association. ... George Bernard Shaw (July 26, 1856 – November 2, 1950) was an Irish playwright and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925. ... Frank Harris (February 14, 1856 - August 27, 1931) was an author and editor. ...

Kreymborg was life-long friends with Carl Sandburg, each indepentently chosing to write in free verse. Kreymborg's tone-poems, or 'mushrooms', had seldom made it into print, but in 1916, soon after his move to Ridgefield they were brought out in book form by John Marshall as 'Mushrooms: A Book of Free Forms' and Williams praised them as a "triumph for America".^[15] Time magazine, December 4, 1939 Carl August Sandburg (January 6, 1878 – July 22, 1967) was an American poet, historian, novelist, balladeer and folklorist. ... Free verse (also at times referred to as vers libre) is a term describing various styles of poetry that are not written using strict meter or rhyme, but that still are recognizable as poetry by virtue of complex patterns of one sort or another that readers can perceive to be...

Kreymborg spent a year touring the United States, mostly visiting universities, reading his poetry while accompanying himself on a mandolin.

1920s

Kreymborg continued to edit Others somewhat erratically until 1919^[16]; he then in June 1921 sailed to Europe^[17] to act as editor of Broom, An International Magazine of the Arts. Contributors included Malcolm Cowley, E. E. Cummings, Amy Lowell and Walter de la Mare. The magazine lost money. Kreymborg soon resigned and the magazine ceased publication in 1924.^[18] An ironic anecdote on the status of modernism: the previous tenants of the Paris office of Broom had left hanging an original oil painting by an aspiring artist, Fernand Léger. When the Broom office closed down, the painting was left behind for its next tenants. It is now worth millions of dollars. Malcolm Cowley, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1963 Malcolm Cowley (1898 – March 27, 1989) was an American novelist, poet, critic, and journalist. ... E. E. Cummings Edward Estlin Cummings (October 14, 1894 – September 3, 1962), typically abbreviated E. E. Cummings, was an American poet, painter, essayist, and playwright. ... Amy Lowell Amy Lawrence Lowell (February 9, 1874 – May 12, 1925) was an American poet of the imagist school, who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. ... Walter John de la Mare, OM (April 25, 1873 - June 22, 1956), was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist, probably best remembered (though not necessarily justly so) for his works for children. ... Still Life with a Beer Mug, 1921. ...

Kreymborg's poems appeared in The Dial in 1923.^[19] The January 1920 issue of the Dial. ...

In the summer of 1925, Kreymborg was staying in Lake George Village, and happened to meet Paul Rosenfeld who was staying with Stieglitz. In one late night discussion Kreymborg and Rosenfeld lamented the disappearance of various literary magazines, including Broom. Another neighbour, Samuel Ornitz appeared and offered financial backing for an annual book of new writing. Thus Kreymborg and Rosenfeld founded American Caravan, which was to be edited by Lewis Mumford and Van Wyck Brooks.^[20] The Second American Caravan, was edited by Kreymborg, Mumford, and Rosenfeld; it was reviewed the December 1928 issue of The Dial. Paul Leopold Rosenfeld (May 4, 1890–July 21, 1946) was an American journalist, best known as a music critic. ... The Hollywood Ten was a group of American screenwriters, actors, and directors, alleged members of the Communist Party, who were convicted of contempt of Congress during the height of the Red Scare. ... Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian of technology and science, also noted for his study of cities. ... Van Wyck Brooks (b. ...

Kreymborg maintained a long-term connection with Alfred Stieglitz primarily because of Kreymborg's relationship with Hugo Knudsen, who invented some of the early photo-printing processes that Stieglitz utilized. Kundsen and Kreymborg both married sisters Beatrice (Bea) and Dot Bloom (respectively). Alfred Stieglitz, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1935 Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American-born photographer who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an acceptable art form alongside painting and sculpture. ... Hugo Knudsen was an American printer, eponym of the Knudsen process for fine lithography, patented in 1915. ...

Other interests

He also wrote puppet plays (his most famous being Manikin Minikin and Lima Beans), which he performed with his wife, Dot, while touring the United States.

Kreymborg played chess at a professional standard,^[21] on two occasions he played and lost to Jose Capablanca He drew one game with the U.S. Champion Frank Marshall in the 1911 Masters Tournament, but shortly afterward left the chess world after a stunning defeat by Oscar Chajes, returning to the sport roughly twenty-three years later. He wrote the article 'Chess Reclaims a Devotee', which is well-known in chess circles.^[22] José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera (November 19, 1888 - March 8, 1942) was a famous Cuban chess player in the early to mid twentieth century. ... This article is about the early 20th century chess champion. ... Oscar Chajes was a chess player. ...

Due to his knack of "discovering" and publishing some of the most important poets during his time, Kreymborg later bacame president of the American Society of Composers, Artists, and Performers. The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) is an organization known as a collecting society that protects intellectual property, ensuring that music which is broadcast, commercially recorded, or otherwise used for profit, pays a fee to compensate the creators of that music. ...

Critical views

Kreymborg later became a relatively conservative poet, but — according to Julian Symons — "never an interesting one"^[23] Julian Gustave Symons (1912 - 1994) was a British writer, best known for crime fiction. ...

Works

• Love and Life and Other Studies (1908)
• Apostrophes: A Book of Tributes to Masters of Music (1910)
• Erna Vitek (1914) novel
• Edna: The Girl of the Street (1915) [24] PDF of 1919 edition with G. B. Shaw contribution
• To My Mother 10 Rhythms (1915)
• Mushrooms: A Book of Free Forms (1916) poems, as 1915 Mushrooms 16 Rhythms in Bruno Chap Books
• Others: An Anthology of the New Verse (1916) editor
• Others: An Anthology of the New Verse (1917) editor
• Six Plays for Poem-Mimes (1918)
• Blood of Things: A Second Book of Free Forms (1920)
• Others for 1919: An Anthology of the New Verse (1920)
• Plays for Merry Andrews (1920)
• Less Lonely (1923)
• Puppet Plays (1923)
• Troubadour (1925) autobiography
• Lima Beans. A Scherzo Play in One Act (1925)
• Rocking Chairs and Other Comedies (1925)
• Manikin and Minikin (1925)
• Scarlet and Mellow (1926)
• There's a Moon Tonight (1926) comedy
• The American Caravan (1927), yearbook, editor with Lewis Mumford, Van Wyck Brooks and Paul Rosenfeld, later years also
• Funnybone Alley (1927)
• The Lost Sail, A Cape Cod Diary (1928)
• Alfred Kreymborg (1928) The Pamphlet Poets
• Manhattan Men: Poems and Epitaphs (1929) poems
• Body and Stone: A Song Cycle (1929)
• A History of American Poetry: Our Singing Strength (1929) also later in 1934
• An Anthology of American Poetry Lyric: America 1630 – 1930 (1930) anthology, later editions are supplemented
• Prologue in Hell (1930)
• I'm Not Complaining: A Kaffeeklatsch (1932)
• Little World. 1914 and After (1932)
• I'm No Hero (1933)
• How Do You Do Sir? And Other Short Plays (1934)
• Anthology of One-Act Plays 1937-38 (1938) editor
• The Planets: A Modern Allegory Inscribed (1938)
• Two New Yorkers (1938) editor Stanley Burnshaw, illustrated by Alexander Kruse
• The Four Apes and Other Fables of Our Day (1939)
• Poetic Drama: An Anthology of Plays in Verse (1941) editor
• Ten American Ballads (1942)
• Selected Poems 1912 to 1944 (1945)
• Man and Shadow: An Allegory (1946) poems
• The Poetry Society of America Anthology (1946) editor with Amy Bonner and others
• No More War: An Ode to Peace (1949)
• No More War and other poems (1950)

Lewis Mumford Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian of technology and science, also noted for his study of cities. ... Van Wyck Brooks (b. ... Paul Leopold Rosenfeld (May 4, 1890–July 21, 1946) was an American journalist, best known as a music critic. ... Stanley Burnshaw (June 20, 1906 - September 16, 2005) was an American literary figure known for his poetry. ...

References

• Jay Bochner, 'The Glebe' in American Literary Magazines: The Twentieth Century, edited by Edward E. Chielens (Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood Press, 1992)
• Ruth Brandon, Surreal Lives: The Surrealists 1917 - 1945, Grove Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8021-3727-X.
• Humphrey Carpenter, Geniuses Together: American Writers in Paris in the 1920s, Unwin Hyman, 1987. ISBN 0-04-440067-5.
• Suzanne Churchill 'Making Space for Others: A History of a Modernist Little Magazine' in Journal of Modern Literature, Volume: 22. Issue: 1. 1998
• Benita Eisler, O'Keeffe and Stieglitz: An American Romance, Doubleday, 1991. ISBN 0-14-017094-4.
• Hugh Kenner, The Pound Era, 1971 (Faber and Faber, 1972. ISBN 0-571-10668-4 paperback).
• Christine Stansell, American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century, Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt & Co, 2000. ISBN 0-8050-4847-2.
• Symons, Julian, Makers of the New: The Revolution in Literature, 1912–1939, Andre Deutsch, 1987, ISBN 0233980075

Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter (April 29, 1946 – January 4, 2005) was an English biographer, author and radio broadcaster. ... Hugh Kenner (January 7, 1923 – November 24, 2003), Canadian literary scholar, critic, & professor. ... Julian Gustave Symons (1912 - 1994) was a British writer, best known for crime fiction. ...

Notes

1. ^  a Chess History Note cites the autobiography Troubador
2. ^  Stansell, op. cit. page 83.
3. ^  Eisler, op. cit. page 104.
4. ^  Churchill, op. cit. , page 53, note 26.
5. ^  Bochner, op. cit., page 137.
6. ^  Kenner, op. cit. page 158
7. ^  Churchill, op. cit. page 52.
8. ^  Churchill, op. cit. page 51
9. ^  Brandon, op. cit. page 82
10. ^  Churchill, op. cit. page 52, note 20.
11. ^  Stansell op. cit. pages 99–100,
12. ^  The Art of Poetry: Marianne Moore
13. ^  Kreymborg, Troubador, Chapter 12, page 79.
14. ^  Kreymborg, Troubador, Chapter 12, page 79.
15. ^  according to Symons, op. cit. paegs 122 and 127, the 'Mushrooms' had been "unpublishable", although this does not seem quite fair as the acknowledgements page thanks the editors of The New Republic, The Poetry Journal, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse; Others: A Magazine of the New Verse; The Egoist, Catholic Anthology, Bruno Chap Books, Greenwich Village and Rogue.
16. ^  Symons, op. cit. page 122.
17. ^  Churchill, op. cit. page 52, note 20,
18. ^  Carpenter, op. cit. page 168.
19. ^  his 'Six Movements' appeared in Volume 75 No.5 (November 1923). Symons, op. cit. page 152 indicates that his work appeared in early 1921, but the only mention of Kreymborg in the contents for that period is for a comment on the forthcoming Broom in Issue Volume 70 No.5 of May 1921.
20. ^  Eiseler, op. cit. page 346.
21. ^  Brandon, op. cit. page 64.
22. ^  see Chess History Note
23. ^  Symons, op. cit. page 122.

External links

• Chess History Notes with section on Kreymborg including photo
• Another note concerning Kreymorg's return to chess