My life in poetry

Description

"My Life in Poetry" by Stanton A. Coblentz is a literary autobiography written in the mid-20th century. It charts a poet-critic’s lifelong devotion to verse, from formative childhood readings and adolescent awakenings to professional forays in journalism and editing, alongside a sustained defense of traditional craft against modernist formlessness. Expect candid reflections on misrepresentation, creative process, and the personal trials (notably a debilitating eye condition) that shaped his work. The opening of the memoir frames Coblentz’s purpose: to dispel myths about his life and explain his long fight for poetry’s “light.” He recalls a mother’s readings of Longfellow, a boyish vow to become a poet, adolescent grief that sparked first verses, and the solace he found in Shelley and in Bryant’s anthology. Early efforts brought torrents of rejections, a close brush with a vanity press, and—after a harsh rebuff from poet-teacher Leonard Bacon—eventual entry into Bacon’s class and first small publications; a prize quatrain and a New York Times poem led to reviewing work and a fortuitous offer from newspaper editor Edmond Coblentz. He describes the rapture and trance of composition, then a life-altering series of eye operations that left him painfully sensitive to light, reshaping his habits yet, paradoxically, deepening his inner composing. Alongside steady reading and a Master’s thesis, he stakes a firm, polemical stand for traditional form against formless experiment, while cherishing humane mentors like Witter Bynner. After stints writing verse to order at the San Francisco Examiner and low-paid work at the Overland Monthly, he decides to “go East,” and on arriving in New York he endures loneliness, knocks on editorial doors, secures his first book review, and, through Edwin Markham’s hospitality, begins edging into the city’s literary world. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Subjects

• Poetry
• Coblentz, Stanton A. (Stanton Arthur), 1896-1982
• Poets, American -- 20th century -- Biography
• PS