In this series, a contemporary poet selects and introduces a poet of the past. By their choice of poems and by the personal and critical reactions they express in their prefaces, the editors offer insights into their own work as well as providing an accessible and passionate introduction to some of the greatest poets of our literature.Harold Hart Crane was born in Ohio in 1899. He spent much of his life in New York City, where he worked irregualrly as a copywriter. White Buildings, his first collection, appeared in 1926 and his most famous work, The Bridge, in 1930. A reaction against the pessimism in T. S. Eliot_s The Waste Land, it is a love song to the myth of America and its optimism encapsualtes the excitement and energy of the Jazz Age.

Hart Crane committed suicide in 1932.