Will Dockery wrote:
Harry Kemp (American poet)
Poems
"[http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1326.html Blind]"
*[http://www.poemhunter.com/harry-kemp/ Harry Kemp] at [[PoemHunter]] (36
poems)
*[http://allpoetry.com/Harry-Kemp Harry Kemp] at AllPoetry (38 poems)
Books
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Kemp,+Harry | name=Harry Kemp}}
About
*[http://www.eoneill.com/library/newsletter/iv_1-2/iv-1-2f.htm Harry Kemp: >> Lest we forget], ''The Eugene O'Neill newsletter''
*[http://www.jstor.org/stable/20570273?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents review >> of ''The Cry of Youth]'' in ''[[Poetry (magazine)|Poetry]]''
Wiki Biography:
http://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Harry_Kemp
This article is about the 20th-century American poet. For the 20th-century >> English poet & teacher, see Harry Kemp (UK poet).
Harry Hibbard Kemp (December 15, 1883 - August 5, 1960) was an American poet >> and prose writer of the twentieth century. He was known as (and promoted
himself as) the "Vagabond Poet", the "Villon of America", the "Hobo Poet", >> or the "Tramp Poet", and was a well-known popular literary figure of his
era.
Kemp was born in Youngstown, Ohio, the only son of a candymaker. He was
raised by his grandmother, in a house by the local train yards.
At the age of 17 he left home to become a common seaman. After returning to >> the United States he traveled across the country by riding the rails as a
hobo, carrying copies of Shakespeare, Shelley, and other poets in his
rucksack.
He later attended the University of Kansas, and while a student he began
publishing verse in newspapers and magazines.
Tramp poet
Kemp had a knack for self-promotion, what he called "the Art of
Spectacularism," and early learned to collaborate with and manipulate
journalists to attract attention to his work. He spent time in Paris in the >> early 1920s, along with the more famous members of the Lost Generation.
Among those influenced by, and working on the same path as Kemp were, in his >> autobiographical novel of Hobohemianism, W.H. Davies' The Autobiography of a >> Super-Tramp (1908), and the grim yet poetic realism of Maxim Gorky.
Kemp spent much of his maturity traveling; he stayed in a number of planned >> communities for varying lengths of time, then wrote autobiographical novels >> about his experiences. When not traveling he was a regular denizen of
Greenwich Village in New York City and Provincetown on Cape Cod in
Massachusetts, where he was associated with the Provincetown Players.
Kemp was also known as the "poet of the dunes." He lived on and off in a
shack in the dunes of Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for a period of >> about 40 years, and he died there in 1960. A 1934 Kemp poem, "The Last
Return," was written for the Coast Guard men who steadfastly worked to save >> the lives of those shipwrecked on Cape Cod's coast.
Kemp's Tramping on Life: An autobiographical narrative (1922) was one of the >> best selling "tramp autobiographies" of the 1900–1939 period.
Kemp knew many of the bohemian and progressive literary and cultural figures >> of his generation, including Elbert Hubbard, Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell,
Bernarr MacFadden, Sinclair Lewis, Max Eastman, Eugene O'Neill, Edmund
Wilson, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, and many others. Kemp played a role >> in the first stage production of O'Neill's earliest play, Bound East for
Cardiff. Kemp was physically imposing, "Tall, broad-shouldered, and robust," >> Wetzsteon, p. 334. and gained a reputation as a lover, sometimes of other
men's wives; he was involved in various scandals throughout his career. His >> part in Upton Sinclair's divorce was especially notorious in its day.
As a means of kidding Harry Kemp, George Nathan and I pretended to a vast
interest in Greenwich Village, and one day asked him to take us there and
show us the sights. He accepted eagerly, and we walked all the way from 331 >> Fourth Avenue. Whenever he pointed out a celebrity... we would stop short, >> stare fixedly, and make a show of being tremendously impressed. Finally,
almost with bated breath, Kemp indicated a second-story window in a
ramshackle house, and said: "When Oscar Wilde was in New York his girl lived >> there." "His girl?" demanded Nathan. "What in hell, Mr. Kemp, was Mr. Wilde >> doing with a *girl*?" For some reason unknown, this greatly upset Kemp, and >> he spent half an hour trying to convince Nathan and me that, in addition to >> his homosexual practice, Wilde also indulged in more normal sin. We
professed to regard it as a slander upon his principles, and denounced Kemp >> for spreading such stories about a dead and defenseless man. He then got
into a considerable lather and proposed to produce the woman, but we begged >> him to say no more about a painful subject.
Later Years
In addition to his original books, Kemp translated a play by Tirso de Molina >> as The Love-Rogue (1923), and edited The Bronze Treasury (1927), "an
anthology of 81 obscure English poets." Kemp's views turned somewhat more
conservative with age; he rejected leftist and anarchist sympathies and
wrote approvingly of Jesus Christ as the "divine hobo" and the "Super
Tramp."
The hobo poet Harry Kemp hailed Jesus Christ as the "super-tramp" and
"divine hobo" for the man Jesus preached a social gospel, and consorted with >> outcasts and criminals. It wasn't Jesus' fault if the chuches that claimed >> him had grown repressive and corrupt. He had stood for voluntary poverty,
not self-satisfied greed. He had stood for justice and identified with the >> downtrodden, saying that what you do the least of God's creatures, you do to >> me.
Writing
According to Louis Untermeyer (editor of Modern American Poetry), Kemp's
early collections (The Cry of Youth and The Passing God) are "full of every >> kind of poetry except the kind one might imagine Kemp would write. Instead >> of crude and boisterous verse, here is precise and over-polished poetry."
Untermeyer's opinion was that Chanteys and Ballads is "riper," with "the
sense of personality more pronounced."<ref?Louis Untermeyer, ed., Modern
American Poetry, Fourth Revised Edition, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co., >> 1930; p. 376. Print.</ref>
Recognition
Kemp's reputation had declined into obscurity by the time of his death in
1960; but his role in the history of modern American literature and the
American Left has brought renewed interest and further publication of his
work.
There is a street named for him, Harry Kemp Way, in Provincetown.
In 1995, the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce made plans to create a First >> Landing Park to commemorate the Pilgrims' voyage in 1620. Ms. Ruth Hiebert >> made a donation in the name of her late father, Dr. Daniel Hieber, who,
along with Harry Kemp, the celebrated "Tramp Poet" of the 1920s literary
world who abandoned Greenwich Village for life in a Provincetown dune shack, >> would reenact the first landing every year, complete with dubious costumes >> Kemp imagined the intrepid voyagers might have worn."It was all somewhat
silly, but it did keep the true history alive," Ms. Hiebert told the Globe.
Publications
The Cry of Youth. New York: Kennerley, 1914.
The Thresher's Wife. New York: A. & C. Boni, 1914.
The Passing God: Songs for lovers (with introduction by Richard Le
Gallienne). New York: Brentano's, 1919; London: Brentano's, 1922.
Chanteys and Ballads: Sea-chanteys, tramp-ballads, and other ballads and
poems. New York: Brentano's, 1920.
The Sea and the Dunes, and other poems. New York: Brentano's, 1926.
Don Juan's Note-Book. New York: privately published; printed by Alex L.
Hillman, 1929.
Where Now Green Gardens? Harry answers Omar. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown >> Publishers, 1945.
The Poet's Life of Christ: Songs of the living Lord. Provincetown, MA:
Provincetown Publishers, 1946.
Provincetown Tideways (1948)
Poet of the Dunes: Songs of the dunes and the outer shore, with others in
varying modes and moods. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown Publishers, 1952;
Provincetown, MA: Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association, 1988.
Rhyme of Provincetown Nicknames. Providence, MA: Providence Publishers,
1954.
------------------------------------------------------------
A great poet of olden times...
Zod wrote:
Will Dockery wrote:
Harry Kemp (American poet)
Poems
"[http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1326.html Blind]"
*[http://www.poemhunter.com/harry-kemp/ Harry Kemp] at [[PoemHunter]] (36 >>> poems)
*[http://allpoetry.com/Harry-Kemp Harry Kemp] at AllPoetry (38 poems)
Books
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Kemp,+Harry | name=Harry Kemp}}
About
*[http://www.eoneill.com/library/newsletter/iv_1-2/iv-1-2f.htm Harry Kemp: >>> Lest we forget], ''The Eugene O'Neill newsletter''
*[http://www.jstor.org/stable/20570273?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents review >>> of ''The Cry of Youth]'' in ''[[Poetry (magazine)|Poetry]]''
Wiki Biography:
http://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Harry_Kemp
This article is about the 20th-century American poet. For the 20th-century >>> English poet & teacher, see Harry Kemp (UK poet).
Harry Hibbard Kemp (December 15, 1883 - August 5, 1960) was an American poet
and prose writer of the twentieth century. He was known as (and promoted >>> himself as) the "Vagabond Poet", the "Villon of America", the "Hobo Poet", >>> or the "Tramp Poet", and was a well-known popular literary figure of his >>> era.
Kemp was born in Youngstown, Ohio, the only son of a candymaker. He was
raised by his grandmother, in a house by the local train yards.
At the age of 17 he left home to become a common seaman. After returning to >>> the United States he traveled across the country by riding the rails as a >>> hobo, carrying copies of Shakespeare, Shelley, and other poets in his
rucksack.
He later attended the University of Kansas, and while a student he began >>> publishing verse in newspapers and magazines.
Tramp poet
Kemp had a knack for self-promotion, what he called "the Art of
Spectacularism," and early learned to collaborate with and manipulate
journalists to attract attention to his work. He spent time in Paris in the >>> early 1920s, along with the more famous members of the Lost Generation.
Among those influenced by, and working on the same path as Kemp were, in his
autobiographical novel of Hobohemianism, W.H. Davies' The Autobiography of a
Super-Tramp (1908), and the grim yet poetic realism of Maxim Gorky.
Kemp spent much of his maturity traveling; he stayed in a number of planned >>> communities for varying lengths of time, then wrote autobiographical novels >>> about his experiences. When not traveling he was a regular denizen of
Greenwich Village in New York City and Provincetown on Cape Cod in
Massachusetts, where he was associated with the Provincetown Players.
Kemp was also known as the "poet of the dunes." He lived on and off in a >>> shack in the dunes of Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for a period of
about 40 years, and he died there in 1960. A 1934 Kemp poem, "The Last
Return," was written for the Coast Guard men who steadfastly worked to save >>> the lives of those shipwrecked on Cape Cod's coast.
Kemp's Tramping on Life: An autobiographical narrative (1922) was one of the
best selling "tramp autobiographies" of the 1900–1939 period.
Kemp knew many of the bohemian and progressive literary and cultural figures
of his generation, including Elbert Hubbard, Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, >>> Bernarr MacFadden, Sinclair Lewis, Max Eastman, Eugene O'Neill, Edmund
Wilson, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, and many others. Kemp played a role >>> in the first stage production of O'Neill's earliest play, Bound East for >>> Cardiff. Kemp was physically imposing, "Tall, broad-shouldered, and robust,"
Wetzsteon, p. 334. and gained a reputation as a lover, sometimes of other >>> men's wives; he was involved in various scandals throughout his career. His >>> part in Upton Sinclair's divorce was especially notorious in its day.
As a means of kidding Harry Kemp, George Nathan and I pretended to a vast >>> interest in Greenwich Village, and one day asked him to take us there and >>> show us the sights. He accepted eagerly, and we walked all the way from 331 >>> Fourth Avenue. Whenever he pointed out a celebrity... we would stop short, >>> stare fixedly, and make a show of being tremendously impressed. Finally, >>> almost with bated breath, Kemp indicated a second-story window in a
ramshackle house, and said: "When Oscar Wilde was in New York his girl lived
there." "His girl?" demanded Nathan. "What in hell, Mr. Kemp, was Mr. Wilde
doing with a *girl*?" For some reason unknown, this greatly upset Kemp, and >>> he spent half an hour trying to convince Nathan and me that, in addition to >>> his homosexual practice, Wilde also indulged in more normal sin. We
professed to regard it as a slander upon his principles, and denounced Kemp >>> for spreading such stories about a dead and defenseless man. He then got >>> into a considerable lather and proposed to produce the woman, but we begged >>> him to say no more about a painful subject.
Later Years
In addition to his original books, Kemp translated a play by Tirso de Molina
as The Love-Rogue (1923), and edited The Bronze Treasury (1927), "an
anthology of 81 obscure English poets." Kemp's views turned somewhat more >>> conservative with age; he rejected leftist and anarchist sympathies and
wrote approvingly of Jesus Christ as the "divine hobo" and the "Super
Tramp."
The hobo poet Harry Kemp hailed Jesus Christ as the "super-tramp" and
"divine hobo" for the man Jesus preached a social gospel, and consorted with
outcasts and criminals. It wasn't Jesus' fault if the chuches that claimed >>> him had grown repressive and corrupt. He had stood for voluntary poverty, >>> not self-satisfied greed. He had stood for justice and identified with the >>> downtrodden, saying that what you do the least of God's creatures, you do to
me.
Writing
According to Louis Untermeyer (editor of Modern American Poetry), Kemp's >>> early collections (The Cry of Youth and The Passing God) are "full of every >>> kind of poetry except the kind one might imagine Kemp would write. Instead >>> of crude and boisterous verse, here is precise and over-polished poetry." >>> Untermeyer's opinion was that Chanteys and Ballads is "riper," with "the >>> sense of personality more pronounced."<ref?Louis Untermeyer, ed., Modern >>> American Poetry, Fourth Revised Edition, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co., >>> 1930; p. 376. Print.</ref>
Recognition
Kemp's reputation had declined into obscurity by the time of his death in >>> 1960; but his role in the history of modern American literature and the
American Left has brought renewed interest and further publication of his >>> work.
There is a street named for him, Harry Kemp Way, in Provincetown.
In 1995, the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce made plans to create a First >>> Landing Park to commemorate the Pilgrims' voyage in 1620. Ms. Ruth Hiebert >>> made a donation in the name of her late father, Dr. Daniel Hieber, who,
along with Harry Kemp, the celebrated "Tramp Poet" of the 1920s literary >>> world who abandoned Greenwich Village for life in a Provincetown dune shack,
would reenact the first landing every year, complete with dubious costumes >>> Kemp imagined the intrepid voyagers might have worn."It was all somewhat >>> silly, but it did keep the true history alive," Ms. Hiebert told the Globe.
Publications
The Cry of Youth. New York: Kennerley, 1914.
The Thresher's Wife. New York: A. & C. Boni, 1914.
The Passing God: Songs for lovers (with introduction by Richard Le
Gallienne). New York: Brentano's, 1919; London: Brentano's, 1922.
Chanteys and Ballads: Sea-chanteys, tramp-ballads, and other ballads and >>> poems. New York: Brentano's, 1920.
The Sea and the Dunes, and other poems. New York: Brentano's, 1926.
Don Juan's Note-Book. New York: privately published; printed by Alex L.
Hillman, 1929.
Where Now Green Gardens? Harry answers Omar. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown >>> Publishers, 1945.
The Poet's Life of Christ: Songs of the living Lord. Provincetown, MA:
Provincetown Publishers, 1946.
Provincetown Tideways (1948)
Poet of the Dunes: Songs of the dunes and the outer shore, with others in >>> varying modes and moods. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown Publishers, 1952; >>> Provincetown, MA: Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association, 1988.
Rhyme of Provincetown Nicknames. Providence, MA: Providence Publishers,
1954.
------------------------------------------------------------
A great poet of olden times...
Actually, Harry Kemp is considered one of the first "Modern poets".
Will Dockery wrote:
Zod wrote:
Will Dockery wrote:
Harry Kemp (American poet)
Poems
"[http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1326.html Blind]"
*[http://www.poemhunter.com/harry-kemp/ Harry Kemp] at [[PoemHunter]] (36 >>>> poems)
*[http://allpoetry.com/Harry-Kemp Harry Kemp] at AllPoetry (38 poems)
Books
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Kemp,+Harry | name=Harry Kemp}}
About
*[http://www.eoneill.com/library/newsletter/iv_1-2/iv-1-2f.htm Harry Kemp: >>>> Lest we forget], ''The Eugene O'Neill newsletter''
*[http://www.jstor.org/stable/20570273?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents review >>>> of ''The Cry of Youth]'' in ''[[Poetry (magazine)|Poetry]]''
Wiki Biography:
http://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Harry_Kemp
This article is about the 20th-century American poet. For the 20th-century >>>> English poet & teacher, see Harry Kemp (UK poet).
Harry Hibbard Kemp (December 15, 1883 - August 5, 1960) was an American poet
and prose writer of the twentieth century. He was known as (and promoted >>>> himself as) the "Vagabond Poet", the "Villon of America", the "Hobo Poet", >>>> or the "Tramp Poet", and was a well-known popular literary figure of his >>>> era.
Kemp was born in Youngstown, Ohio, the only son of a candymaker. He was >>>> raised by his grandmother, in a house by the local train yards.
At the age of 17 he left home to become a common seaman. After returning to
the United States he traveled across the country by riding the rails as a >>>> hobo, carrying copies of Shakespeare, Shelley, and other poets in his
rucksack.
He later attended the University of Kansas, and while a student he began >>>> publishing verse in newspapers and magazines.
Tramp poet
Kemp had a knack for self-promotion, what he called "the Art of
Spectacularism," and early learned to collaborate with and manipulate
journalists to attract attention to his work. He spent time in Paris in the
early 1920s, along with the more famous members of the Lost Generation. >>>> Among those influenced by, and working on the same path as Kemp were, in his
autobiographical novel of Hobohemianism, W.H. Davies' The Autobiography of a
Super-Tramp (1908), and the grim yet poetic realism of Maxim Gorky.
Kemp spent much of his maturity traveling; he stayed in a number of planned
communities for varying lengths of time, then wrote autobiographical novels
about his experiences. When not traveling he was a regular denizen of
Greenwich Village in New York City and Provincetown on Cape Cod in
Massachusetts, where he was associated with the Provincetown Players.
Kemp was also known as the "poet of the dunes." He lived on and off in a >>>> shack in the dunes of Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for a period of
about 40 years, and he died there in 1960. A 1934 Kemp poem, "The Last >>>> Return," was written for the Coast Guard men who steadfastly worked to save
the lives of those shipwrecked on Cape Cod's coast.
Kemp's Tramping on Life: An autobiographical narrative (1922) was one of the
best selling "tramp autobiographies" of the 1900–1939 period.
Kemp knew many of the bohemian and progressive literary and cultural figures
of his generation, including Elbert Hubbard, Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, >>>> Bernarr MacFadden, Sinclair Lewis, Max Eastman, Eugene O'Neill, Edmund >>>> Wilson, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, and many others. Kemp played a role
in the first stage production of O'Neill's earliest play, Bound East for >>>> Cardiff. Kemp was physically imposing, "Tall, broad-shouldered, and robust,"
Wetzsteon, p. 334. and gained a reputation as a lover, sometimes of other >>>> men's wives; he was involved in various scandals throughout his career. His
part in Upton Sinclair's divorce was especially notorious in its day.
As a means of kidding Harry Kemp, George Nathan and I pretended to a vast >>>> interest in Greenwich Village, and one day asked him to take us there and >>>> show us the sights. He accepted eagerly, and we walked all the way from 331
Fourth Avenue. Whenever he pointed out a celebrity... we would stop short, >>>> stare fixedly, and make a show of being tremendously impressed. Finally, >>>> almost with bated breath, Kemp indicated a second-story window in a
ramshackle house, and said: "When Oscar Wilde was in New York his girl lived
there." "His girl?" demanded Nathan. "What in hell, Mr. Kemp, was Mr. Wilde
doing with a *girl*?" For some reason unknown, this greatly upset Kemp, and
he spent half an hour trying to convince Nathan and me that, in addition to
his homosexual practice, Wilde also indulged in more normal sin. We
professed to regard it as a slander upon his principles, and denounced Kemp
for spreading such stories about a dead and defenseless man. He then got >>>> into a considerable lather and proposed to produce the woman, but we begged
him to say no more about a painful subject.
Later Years
In addition to his original books, Kemp translated a play by Tirso de Molina
as The Love-Rogue (1923), and edited The Bronze Treasury (1927), "an
anthology of 81 obscure English poets." Kemp's views turned somewhat more >>>> conservative with age; he rejected leftist and anarchist sympathies and >>>> wrote approvingly of Jesus Christ as the "divine hobo" and the "Super
Tramp."
The hobo poet Harry Kemp hailed Jesus Christ as the "super-tramp" and
"divine hobo" for the man Jesus preached a social gospel, and consorted with
outcasts and criminals. It wasn't Jesus' fault if the chuches that claimed >>>> him had grown repressive and corrupt. He had stood for voluntary poverty, >>>> not self-satisfied greed. He had stood for justice and identified with the >>>> downtrodden, saying that what you do the least of God's creatures, you do to
me.
Writing
According to Louis Untermeyer (editor of Modern American Poetry), Kemp's >>>> early collections (The Cry of Youth and The Passing God) are "full of every
kind of poetry except the kind one might imagine Kemp would write. Instead >>>> of crude and boisterous verse, here is precise and over-polished poetry." >>>> Untermeyer's opinion was that Chanteys and Ballads is "riper," with "the >>>> sense of personality more pronounced."<ref?Louis Untermeyer, ed., Modern >>>> American Poetry, Fourth Revised Edition, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co.,
1930; p. 376. Print.</ref>
Recognition
Kemp's reputation had declined into obscurity by the time of his death in >>>> 1960; but his role in the history of modern American literature and the >>>> American Left has brought renewed interest and further publication of his >>>> work.
There is a street named for him, Harry Kemp Way, in Provincetown.
In 1995, the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce made plans to create a First >>>> Landing Park to commemorate the Pilgrims' voyage in 1620. Ms. Ruth Hiebert >>>> made a donation in the name of her late father, Dr. Daniel Hieber, who, >>>> along with Harry Kemp, the celebrated "Tramp Poet" of the 1920s literary >>>> world who abandoned Greenwich Village for life in a Provincetown dune shack,
would reenact the first landing every year, complete with dubious costumes >>>> Kemp imagined the intrepid voyagers might have worn."It was all somewhat >>>> silly, but it did keep the true history alive," Ms. Hiebert told the Globe.
Publications
The Cry of Youth. New York: Kennerley, 1914.
The Thresher's Wife. New York: A. & C. Boni, 1914.
The Passing God: Songs for lovers (with introduction by Richard Le
Gallienne). New York: Brentano's, 1919; London: Brentano's, 1922.
Chanteys and Ballads: Sea-chanteys, tramp-ballads, and other ballads and >>>> poems. New York: Brentano's, 1920.
The Sea and the Dunes, and other poems. New York: Brentano's, 1926.
Don Juan's Note-Book. New York: privately published; printed by Alex L. >>>> Hillman, 1929.
Where Now Green Gardens? Harry answers Omar. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown
Publishers, 1945.
The Poet's Life of Christ: Songs of the living Lord. Provincetown, MA: >>>> Provincetown Publishers, 1946.
Provincetown Tideways (1948)
Poet of the Dunes: Songs of the dunes and the outer shore, with others in >>>> varying modes and moods. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown Publishers, 1952; >>>> Provincetown, MA: Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association, 1988.
Rhyme of Provincetown Nicknames. Providence, MA: Providence Publishers, >>>> 1954.
------------------------------------------------------------
A great poet of olden times...
Actually, Harry Kemp is considered one of the first "Modern poets".
I know that Kemp was a very popular poet who later faded to obscurity.
Will Dockery wrote:
Zod wrote:
Will Dockery wrote:
Harry Kemp (American poet)
Poems
"[http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1326.html Blind]"
*[http://www.poemhunter.com/harry-kemp/ Harry Kemp] at [[PoemHunter]] (36 >>>> poems)
*[http://allpoetry.com/Harry-Kemp Harry Kemp] at AllPoetry (38 poems)
Books
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Kemp,+Harry | name=Harry Kemp}}
About
*[http://www.eoneill.com/library/newsletter/iv_1-2/iv-1-2f.htm Harry Kemp: >>>> Lest we forget], ''The Eugene O'Neill newsletter''
*[http://www.jstor.org/stable/20570273?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents review >>>> of ''The Cry of Youth]'' in ''[[Poetry (magazine)|Poetry]]''
Wiki Biography:
http://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Harry_Kemp
This article is about the 20th-century American poet. For the 20th-century >>>> English poet & teacher, see Harry Kemp (UK poet).
Harry Hibbard Kemp (December 15, 1883 - August 5, 1960) was an American poet
and prose writer of the twentieth century. He was known as (and promoted >>>> himself as) the "Vagabond Poet", the "Villon of America", the "Hobo Poet", >>>> or the "Tramp Poet", and was a well-known popular literary figure of his >>>> era.
Kemp was born in Youngstown, Ohio, the only son of a candymaker. He was >>>> raised by his grandmother, in a house by the local train yards.
At the age of 17 he left home to become a common seaman. After returning to
the United States he traveled across the country by riding the rails as a >>>> hobo, carrying copies of Shakespeare, Shelley, and other poets in his
rucksack.
He later attended the University of Kansas, and while a student he began >>>> publishing verse in newspapers and magazines.
Tramp poet
Kemp had a knack for self-promotion, what he called "the Art of
Spectacularism," and early learned to collaborate with and manipulate
journalists to attract attention to his work. He spent time in Paris in the
early 1920s, along with the more famous members of the Lost Generation. >>>> Among those influenced by, and working on the same path as Kemp were, in his
autobiographical novel of Hobohemianism, W.H. Davies' The Autobiography of a
Super-Tramp (1908), and the grim yet poetic realism of Maxim Gorky.
Kemp spent much of his maturity traveling; he stayed in a number of planned
communities for varying lengths of time, then wrote autobiographical novels
about his experiences. When not traveling he was a regular denizen of
Greenwich Village in New York City and Provincetown on Cape Cod in
Massachusetts, where he was associated with the Provincetown Players.
Kemp was also known as the "poet of the dunes." He lived on and off in a >>>> shack in the dunes of Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for a period of
about 40 years, and he died there in 1960. A 1934 Kemp poem, "The Last >>>> Return," was written for the Coast Guard men who steadfastly worked to save
the lives of those shipwrecked on Cape Cod's coast.
Kemp's Tramping on Life: An autobiographical narrative (1922) was one of the
best selling "tramp autobiographies" of the 1900–1939 period.
Kemp knew many of the bohemian and progressive literary and cultural figures
of his generation, including Elbert Hubbard, Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, >>>> Bernarr MacFadden, Sinclair Lewis, Max Eastman, Eugene O'Neill, Edmund >>>> Wilson, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, and many others. Kemp played a role
in the first stage production of O'Neill's earliest play, Bound East for >>>> Cardiff. Kemp was physically imposing, "Tall, broad-shouldered, and robust,"
Wetzsteon, p. 334. and gained a reputation as a lover, sometimes of other >>>> men's wives; he was involved in various scandals throughout his career. His
part in Upton Sinclair's divorce was especially notorious in its day.
As a means of kidding Harry Kemp, George Nathan and I pretended to a vast >>>> interest in Greenwich Village, and one day asked him to take us there and >>>> show us the sights. He accepted eagerly, and we walked all the way from 331
Fourth Avenue. Whenever he pointed out a celebrity... we would stop short, >>>> stare fixedly, and make a show of being tremendously impressed. Finally, >>>> almost with bated breath, Kemp indicated a second-story window in a
ramshackle house, and said: "When Oscar Wilde was in New York his girl lived
there." "His girl?" demanded Nathan. "What in hell, Mr. Kemp, was Mr. Wilde
doing with a *girl*?" For some reason unknown, this greatly upset Kemp, and
he spent half an hour trying to convince Nathan and me that, in addition to
his homosexual practice, Wilde also indulged in more normal sin. We
professed to regard it as a slander upon his principles, and denounced Kemp
for spreading such stories about a dead and defenseless man. He then got >>>> into a considerable lather and proposed to produce the woman, but we begged
him to say no more about a painful subject.
Later Years
In addition to his original books, Kemp translated a play by Tirso de Molina
as The Love-Rogue (1923), and edited The Bronze Treasury (1927), "an
anthology of 81 obscure English poets." Kemp's views turned somewhat more >>>> conservative with age; he rejected leftist and anarchist sympathies and >>>> wrote approvingly of Jesus Christ as the "divine hobo" and the "Super
Tramp."
The hobo poet Harry Kemp hailed Jesus Christ as the "super-tramp" and
"divine hobo" for the man Jesus preached a social gospel, and consorted with
outcasts and criminals. It wasn't Jesus' fault if the chuches that claimed >>>> him had grown repressive and corrupt. He had stood for voluntary poverty, >>>> not self-satisfied greed. He had stood for justice and identified with the >>>> downtrodden, saying that what you do the least of God's creatures, you do to
me.
Writing
According to Louis Untermeyer (editor of Modern American Poetry), Kemp's >>>> early collections (The Cry of Youth and The Passing God) are "full of every
kind of poetry except the kind one might imagine Kemp would write. Instead >>>> of crude and boisterous verse, here is precise and over-polished poetry." >>>> Untermeyer's opinion was that Chanteys and Ballads is "riper," with "the >>>> sense of personality more pronounced."<ref?Louis Untermeyer, ed., Modern >>>> American Poetry, Fourth Revised Edition, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co.,
1930; p. 376. Print.</ref>
Recognition
Kemp's reputation had declined into obscurity by the time of his death in >>>> 1960; but his role in the history of modern American literature and the >>>> American Left has brought renewed interest and further publication of his >>>> work.
There is a street named for him, Harry Kemp Way, in Provincetown.
In 1995, the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce made plans to create a First >>>> Landing Park to commemorate the Pilgrims' voyage in 1620. Ms. Ruth Hiebert >>>> made a donation in the name of her late father, Dr. Daniel Hieber, who, >>>> along with Harry Kemp, the celebrated "Tramp Poet" of the 1920s literary >>>> world who abandoned Greenwich Village for life in a Provincetown dune shack,
would reenact the first landing every year, complete with dubious costumes >>>> Kemp imagined the intrepid voyagers might have worn."It was all somewhat >>>> silly, but it did keep the true history alive," Ms. Hiebert told the Globe.
Publications
The Cry of Youth. New York: Kennerley, 1914.
The Thresher's Wife. New York: A. & C. Boni, 1914.
The Passing God: Songs for lovers (with introduction by Richard Le
Gallienne). New York: Brentano's, 1919; London: Brentano's, 1922.
Chanteys and Ballads: Sea-chanteys, tramp-ballads, and other ballads and >>>> poems. New York: Brentano's, 1920.
The Sea and the Dunes, and other poems. New York: Brentano's, 1926.
Don Juan's Note-Book. New York: privately published; printed by Alex L. >>>> Hillman, 1929.
Where Now Green Gardens? Harry answers Omar. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown
Publishers, 1945.
The Poet's Life of Christ: Songs of the living Lord. Provincetown, MA: >>>> Provincetown Publishers, 1946.
Provincetown Tideways (1948)
Poet of the Dunes: Songs of the dunes and the outer shore, with others in >>>> varying modes and moods. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown Publishers, 1952; >>>> Provincetown, MA: Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association, 1988.
Rhyme of Provincetown Nicknames. Providence, MA: Providence Publishers, >>>> 1954.
------------------------------------------------------------
A great poet of olden times...
Actually, Harry Kemp is considered one of the first "Modern poets".
I know that Kemp was a very popular poet who later faded to obscurity.
Zod wrote:
Will Dockery wrote:
Harry Kemp (American poet)
Poems
"[http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1326.html Blind]"
*[http://www.poemhunter.com/harry-kemp/ Harry Kemp] at [[PoemHunter]] (36 >>>>> poems)
*[http://allpoetry.com/Harry-Kemp Harry Kemp] at AllPoetry (38 poems)
Books
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Kemp,+Harry | name=Harry Kemp}}
About
*[http://www.eoneill.com/library/newsletter/iv_1-2/iv-1-2f.htm Harry Kemp:
Lest we forget], ''The Eugene O'Neill newsletter''
*[http://www.jstor.org/stable/20570273?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents review
of ''The Cry of Youth]'' in ''[[Poetry (magazine)|Poetry]]''
Wiki Biography:
http://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Harry_Kemp
This article is about the 20th-century American poet. For the 20th-century
English poet & teacher, see Harry Kemp (UK poet).
Harry Hibbard Kemp (December 15, 1883 - August 5, 1960) was an American poet
and prose writer of the twentieth century. He was known as (and promoted >>>>> himself as) the "Vagabond Poet", the "Villon of America", the "Hobo Poet",
or the "Tramp Poet", and was a well-known popular literary figure of his >>>>> era.
Kemp was born in Youngstown, Ohio, the only son of a candymaker. He was >>>>> raised by his grandmother, in a house by the local train yards.
At the age of 17 he left home to become a common seaman. After returning to
the United States he traveled across the country by riding the rails as a >>>>> hobo, carrying copies of Shakespeare, Shelley, and other poets in his >>>>> rucksack.
He later attended the University of Kansas, and while a student he began >>>>> publishing verse in newspapers and magazines.
Tramp poet
Kemp had a knack for self-promotion, what he called "the Art of
Spectacularism," and early learned to collaborate with and manipulate >>>>> journalists to attract attention to his work. He spent time in Paris in the
early 1920s, along with the more famous members of the Lost Generation. >>>>> Among those influenced by, and working on the same path as Kemp were, in his
autobiographical novel of Hobohemianism, W.H. Davies' The Autobiography of a
Super-Tramp (1908), and the grim yet poetic realism of Maxim Gorky.
Kemp spent much of his maturity traveling; he stayed in a number of planned
communities for varying lengths of time, then wrote autobiographical novels
about his experiences. When not traveling he was a regular denizen of >>>>> Greenwich Village in New York City and Provincetown on Cape Cod in
Massachusetts, where he was associated with the Provincetown Players.
Kemp was also known as the "poet of the dunes." He lived on and off in a >>>>> shack in the dunes of Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for a period of
about 40 years, and he died there in 1960. A 1934 Kemp poem, "The Last >>>>> Return," was written for the Coast Guard men who steadfastly worked to save
the lives of those shipwrecked on Cape Cod's coast.
Kemp's Tramping on Life: An autobiographical narrative (1922) was one of the
best selling "tramp autobiographies" of the 1900–1939 period.
Kemp knew many of the bohemian and progressive literary and cultural figures
of his generation, including Elbert Hubbard, Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, >>>>> Bernarr MacFadden, Sinclair Lewis, Max Eastman, Eugene O'Neill, Edmund >>>>> Wilson, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, and many others. Kemp played a role
in the first stage production of O'Neill's earliest play, Bound East for >>>>> Cardiff. Kemp was physically imposing, "Tall, broad-shouldered, and robust,"
Wetzsteon, p. 334. and gained a reputation as a lover, sometimes of other >>>>> men's wives; he was involved in various scandals throughout his career. His
part in Upton Sinclair's divorce was especially notorious in its day.
As a means of kidding Harry Kemp, George Nathan and I pretended to a vast >>>>> interest in Greenwich Village, and one day asked him to take us there and >>>>> show us the sights. He accepted eagerly, and we walked all the way from 331
Fourth Avenue. Whenever he pointed out a celebrity... we would stop short,
stare fixedly, and make a show of being tremendously impressed. Finally, >>>>> almost with bated breath, Kemp indicated a second-story window in a
ramshackle house, and said: "When Oscar Wilde was in New York his girl lived
there." "His girl?" demanded Nathan. "What in hell, Mr. Kemp, was Mr. Wilde
doing with a *girl*?" For some reason unknown, this greatly upset Kemp, and
he spent half an hour trying to convince Nathan and me that, in addition to
his homosexual practice, Wilde also indulged in more normal sin. We
professed to regard it as a slander upon his principles, and denounced Kemp
for spreading such stories about a dead and defenseless man. He then got >>>>> into a considerable lather and proposed to produce the woman, but we begged
him to say no more about a painful subject.
Later Years
In addition to his original books, Kemp translated a play by Tirso de Molina
as The Love-Rogue (1923), and edited The Bronze Treasury (1927), "an >>>>> anthology of 81 obscure English poets." Kemp's views turned somewhat more >>>>> conservative with age; he rejected leftist and anarchist sympathies and >>>>> wrote approvingly of Jesus Christ as the "divine hobo" and the "Super >>>>> Tramp."
The hobo poet Harry Kemp hailed Jesus Christ as the "super-tramp" and >>>>> "divine hobo" for the man Jesus preached a social gospel, and consorted with
outcasts and criminals. It wasn't Jesus' fault if the chuches that claimed
him had grown repressive and corrupt. He had stood for voluntary poverty, >>>>> not self-satisfied greed. He had stood for justice and identified with the
downtrodden, saying that what you do the least of God's creatures, you do to
me.
Writing
According to Louis Untermeyer (editor of Modern American Poetry), Kemp's >>>>> early collections (The Cry of Youth and The Passing God) are "full of every
kind of poetry except the kind one might imagine Kemp would write. Instead
of crude and boisterous verse, here is precise and over-polished poetry." >>>>> Untermeyer's opinion was that Chanteys and Ballads is "riper," with "the >>>>> sense of personality more pronounced."<ref?Louis Untermeyer, ed., Modern >>>>> American Poetry, Fourth Revised Edition, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co.,
1930; p. 376. Print.</ref>
Recognition
Kemp's reputation had declined into obscurity by the time of his death in >>>>> 1960; but his role in the history of modern American literature and the >>>>> American Left has brought renewed interest and further publication of his >>>>> work.
There is a street named for him, Harry Kemp Way, in Provincetown.
In 1995, the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce made plans to create a First
Landing Park to commemorate the Pilgrims' voyage in 1620. Ms. Ruth Hiebert
made a donation in the name of her late father, Dr. Daniel Hieber, who, >>>>> along with Harry Kemp, the celebrated "Tramp Poet" of the 1920s literary >>>>> world who abandoned Greenwich Village for life in a Provincetown dune shack,
would reenact the first landing every year, complete with dubious costumes
Kemp imagined the intrepid voyagers might have worn."It was all somewhat >>>>> silly, but it did keep the true history alive," Ms. Hiebert told the Globe.
Publications
The Cry of Youth. New York: Kennerley, 1914.
The Thresher's Wife. New York: A. & C. Boni, 1914.
The Passing God: Songs for lovers (with introduction by Richard Le
Gallienne). New York: Brentano's, 1919; London: Brentano's, 1922.
Chanteys and Ballads: Sea-chanteys, tramp-ballads, and other ballads and >>>>> poems. New York: Brentano's, 1920.
The Sea and the Dunes, and other poems. New York: Brentano's, 1926.
Don Juan's Note-Book. New York: privately published; printed by Alex L. >>>>> Hillman, 1929.
Where Now Green Gardens? Harry answers Omar. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown
Publishers, 1945.
The Poet's Life of Christ: Songs of the living Lord. Provincetown, MA: >>>>> Provincetown Publishers, 1946.
Provincetown Tideways (1948)
Poet of the Dunes: Songs of the dunes and the outer shore, with others in >>>>> varying modes and moods. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown Publishers, 1952; >>>>> Provincetown, MA: Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association, 1988.
Rhyme of Provincetown Nicknames. Providence, MA: Providence Publishers, >>>>> 1954.
------------------------------------------------------------
A great poet of olden times...
Actually, Harry Kemp is considered one of the first "Modern poets".
I know that Kemp was a very popular poet who later faded to obscurity.
As so many have, before and after.
Will Dockery wrote:
Zod wrote:
Will Dockery wrote:
Harry Kemp (American poet)
Poems
"[http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1326.html Blind]"
*[http://www.poemhunter.com/harry-kemp/ Harry Kemp] at [[PoemHunter]] (36 >>>> poems)
*[http://allpoetry.com/Harry-Kemp Harry Kemp] at AllPoetry (38 poems)
Books
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Kemp,+Harry | name=Harry Kemp}}
About
*[http://www.eoneill.com/library/newsletter/iv_1-2/iv-1-2f.htm Harry Kemp: >>>> Lest we forget], ''The Eugene O'Neill newsletter''
*[http://www.jstor.org/stable/20570273?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents review >>>> of ''The Cry of Youth]'' in ''[[Poetry (magazine)|Poetry]]''
Wiki Biography:
http://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Harry_Kemp
This article is about the 20th-century American poet. For the 20th-century >>>> English poet & teacher, see Harry Kemp (UK poet).
Harry Hibbard Kemp (December 15, 1883 - August 5, 1960) was an American poet
and prose writer of the twentieth century. He was known as (and promoted >>>> himself as) the "Vagabond Poet", the "Villon of America", the "Hobo Poet", >>>> or the "Tramp Poet", and was a well-known popular literary figure of his >>>> era.
Kemp was born in Youngstown, Ohio, the only son of a candymaker. He was >>>> raised by his grandmother, in a house by the local train yards.
At the age of 17 he left home to become a common seaman. After returning to
the United States he traveled across the country by riding the rails as a >>>> hobo, carrying copies of Shakespeare, Shelley, and other poets in his
rucksack.
He later attended the University of Kansas, and while a student he began >>>> publishing verse in newspapers and magazines.
Tramp poet
Kemp had a knack for self-promotion, what he called "the Art of
Spectacularism," and early learned to collaborate with and manipulate
journalists to attract attention to his work. He spent time in Paris in the
early 1920s, along with the more famous members of the Lost Generation. >>>> Among those influenced by, and working on the same path as Kemp were, in his
autobiographical novel of Hobohemianism, W.H. Davies' The Autobiography of a
Super-Tramp (1908), and the grim yet poetic realism of Maxim Gorky.
Kemp spent much of his maturity traveling; he stayed in a number of planned
communities for varying lengths of time, then wrote autobiographical novels
about his experiences. When not traveling he was a regular denizen of
Greenwich Village in New York City and Provincetown on Cape Cod in
Massachusetts, where he was associated with the Provincetown Players.
Kemp was also known as the "poet of the dunes." He lived on and off in a >>>> shack in the dunes of Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for a period of
about 40 years, and he died there in 1960. A 1934 Kemp poem, "The Last >>>> Return," was written for the Coast Guard men who steadfastly worked to save
the lives of those shipwrecked on Cape Cod's coast.
Kemp's Tramping on Life: An autobiographical narrative (1922) was one of the
best selling "tramp autobiographies" of the 1900–1939 period.
Kemp knew many of the bohemian and progressive literary and cultural figures
of his generation, including Elbert Hubbard, Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, >>>> Bernarr MacFadden, Sinclair Lewis, Max Eastman, Eugene O'Neill, Edmund >>>> Wilson, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, and many others. Kemp played a role
in the first stage production of O'Neill's earliest play, Bound East for >>>> Cardiff. Kemp was physically imposing, "Tall, broad-shouldered, and robust,"
Wetzsteon, p. 334. and gained a reputation as a lover, sometimes of other >>>> men's wives; he was involved in various scandals throughout his career. His
part in Upton Sinclair's divorce was especially notorious in its day.
As a means of kidding Harry Kemp, George Nathan and I pretended to a vast >>>> interest in Greenwich Village, and one day asked him to take us there and >>>> show us the sights. He accepted eagerly, and we walked all the way from 331
Fourth Avenue. Whenever he pointed out a celebrity... we would stop short, >>>> stare fixedly, and make a show of being tremendously impressed. Finally, >>>> almost with bated breath, Kemp indicated a second-story window in a
ramshackle house, and said: "When Oscar Wilde was in New York his girl lived
there." "His girl?" demanded Nathan. "What in hell, Mr. Kemp, was Mr. Wilde
doing with a *girl*?" For some reason unknown, this greatly upset Kemp, and
he spent half an hour trying to convince Nathan and me that, in addition to
his homosexual practice, Wilde also indulged in more normal sin. We
professed to regard it as a slander upon his principles, and denounced Kemp
for spreading such stories about a dead and defenseless man. He then got >>>> into a considerable lather and proposed to produce the woman, but we begged
him to say no more about a painful subject.
Later Years
In addition to his original books, Kemp translated a play by Tirso de Molina
as The Love-Rogue (1923), and edited The Bronze Treasury (1927), "an
anthology of 81 obscure English poets." Kemp's views turned somewhat more >>>> conservative with age; he rejected leftist and anarchist sympathies and >>>> wrote approvingly of Jesus Christ as the "divine hobo" and the "Super
Tramp."
The hobo poet Harry Kemp hailed Jesus Christ as the "super-tramp" and
"divine hobo" for the man Jesus preached a social gospel, and consorted with
outcasts and criminals. It wasn't Jesus' fault if the chuches that claimed >>>> him had grown repressive and corrupt. He had stood for voluntary poverty, >>>> not self-satisfied greed. He had stood for justice and identified with the >>>> downtrodden, saying that what you do the least of God's creatures, you do to
me.
Writing
According to Louis Untermeyer (editor of Modern American Poetry), Kemp's >>>> early collections (The Cry of Youth and The Passing God) are "full of every
kind of poetry except the kind one might imagine Kemp would write. Instead >>>> of crude and boisterous verse, here is precise and over-polished poetry." >>>> Untermeyer's opinion was that Chanteys and Ballads is "riper," with "the >>>> sense of personality more pronounced."<ref?Louis Untermeyer, ed., Modern >>>> American Poetry, Fourth Revised Edition, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co.,
1930; p. 376. Print.</ref>
Recognition
Kemp's reputation had declined into obscurity by the time of his death in >>>> 1960; but his role in the history of modern American literature and the >>>> American Left has brought renewed interest and further publication of his >>>> work.
There is a street named for him, Harry Kemp Way, in Provincetown.
In 1995, the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce made plans to create a First >>>> Landing Park to commemorate the Pilgrims' voyage in 1620. Ms. Ruth Hiebert >>>> made a donation in the name of her late father, Dr. Daniel Hieber, who, >>>> along with Harry Kemp, the celebrated "Tramp Poet" of the 1920s literary >>>> world who abandoned Greenwich Village for life in a Provincetown dune shack,
would reenact the first landing every year, complete with dubious costumes >>>> Kemp imagined the intrepid voyagers might have worn."It was all somewhat >>>> silly, but it did keep the true history alive," Ms. Hiebert told the Globe.
Publications
The Cry of Youth. New York: Kennerley, 1914.
The Thresher's Wife. New York: A. & C. Boni, 1914.
The Passing God: Songs for lovers (with introduction by Richard Le
Gallienne). New York: Brentano's, 1919; London: Brentano's, 1922.
Chanteys and Ballads: Sea-chanteys, tramp-ballads, and other ballads and >>>> poems. New York: Brentano's, 1920.
The Sea and the Dunes, and other poems. New York: Brentano's, 1926.
Don Juan's Note-Book. New York: privately published; printed by Alex L. >>>> Hillman, 1929.
Where Now Green Gardens? Harry answers Omar. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown
Publishers, 1945.
The Poet's Life of Christ: Songs of the living Lord. Provincetown, MA: >>>> Provincetown Publishers, 1946.
Provincetown Tideways (1948)
Poet of the Dunes: Songs of the dunes and the outer shore, with others in >>>> varying modes and moods. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown Publishers, 1952; >>>> Provincetown, MA: Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association, 1988.
Rhyme of Provincetown Nicknames. Providence, MA: Providence Publishers, >>>> 1954.
------------------------------------------------------------
A great poet of olden times...
Actually, Harry Kemp is considered one of the first "Modern poets".
I know that Kemp was a very popular poet who later faded to obscurity.
Harry Kemp (American poet)
Poems
"[http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1326.html Blind]" *[http://www.poemhunter.com/harry-kemp/ Harry Kemp] at [[PoemHunter]] (36 poems)
*[http://allpoetry.com/Harry-Kemp Harry Kemp] at AllPoetry (38 poems)
Books
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Kemp,+Harry | name=Harry Kemp}}
About
*[http://www.eoneill.com/library/newsletter/iv_1-2/iv-1-2f.htm Harry Kemp: Lest we forget], ''The Eugene O'Neill newsletter'' *[http://www.jstor.org/stable/20570273?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents review
of ''The Cry of Youth]'' in ''[[Poetry (magazine)|Poetry]]''
Wiki Biography:
http://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Harry_Kemp
This article is about the 20th-century American poet. For the 20th-century English poet & teacher, see Harry Kemp (UK poet).
Harry Hibbard Kemp (December 15, 1883 - August 5, 1960) was an American poet and prose writer of the twentieth century. He was known as (and promoted himself as) the "Vagabond Poet", the "Villon of America", the "Hobo Poet",
or the "Tramp Poet", and was a well-known popular literary figure of his
era.
Kemp was born in Youngstown, Ohio, the only son of a candymaker. He was raised by his grandmother, in a house by the local train yards.
At the age of 17 he left home to become a common seaman. After returning to the United States he traveled across the country by riding the rails as a hobo, carrying copies of Shakespeare, Shelley, and other poets in his rucksack.
He later attended the University of Kansas, and while a student he began publishing verse in newspapers and magazines.
Tramp poet
Kemp had a knack for self-promotion, what he called "the Art of Spectacularism," and early learned to collaborate with and manipulate journalists to attract attention to his work. He spent time in Paris in the early 1920s, along with the more famous members of the Lost Generation.
Among those influenced by, and working on the same path as Kemp were, in his autobiographical novel of Hobohemianism, W.H. Davies' The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp (1908), and the grim yet poetic realism of Maxim Gorky.
Kemp spent much of his maturity traveling; he stayed in a number of planned communities for varying lengths of time, then wrote autobiographical novels about his experiences. When not traveling he was a regular denizen of Greenwich Village in New York City and Provincetown on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where he was associated with the Provincetown Players.
Kemp was also known as the "poet of the dunes." He lived on and off in a shack in the dunes of Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for a period of about 40 years, and he died there in 1960. A 1934 Kemp poem, "The Last Return," was written for the Coast Guard men who steadfastly worked to save the lives of those shipwrecked on Cape Cod's coast.
Kemp's Tramping on Life: An autobiographical narrative (1922) was one of the best selling "tramp autobiographies" of the 1900–1939 period.
Kemp knew many of the bohemian and progressive literary and cultural figures of his generation, including Elbert Hubbard, Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, Bernarr MacFadden, Sinclair Lewis, Max Eastman, Eugene O'Neill, Edmund Wilson, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, and many others. Kemp played a role in the first stage production of O'Neill's earliest play, Bound East for Cardiff. Kemp was physically imposing, "Tall, broad-shouldered, and robust," Wetzsteon, p. 334. and gained a reputation as a lover, sometimes of other men's wives; he was involved in various scandals throughout his career. His part in Upton Sinclair's divorce was especially notorious in its day.
As a means of kidding Harry Kemp, George Nathan and I pretended to a vast interest in Greenwich Village, and one day asked him to take us there and show us the sights. He accepted eagerly, and we walked all the way from 331 Fourth Avenue. Whenever he pointed out a celebrity... we would stop short, stare fixedly, and make a show of being tremendously impressed. Finally, almost with bated breath, Kemp indicated a second-story window in a ramshackle house, and said: "When Oscar Wilde was in New York his girl lived there." "His girl?" demanded Nathan. "What in hell, Mr. Kemp, was Mr. Wilde doing with a *girl*?" For some reason unknown, this greatly upset Kemp, and he spent half an hour trying to convince Nathan and me that, in addition to his homosexual practice, Wilde also indulged in more normal sin. We
professed to regard it as a slander upon his principles, and denounced Kemp for spreading such stories about a dead and defenseless man. He then got
into a considerable lather and proposed to produce the woman, but we begged him to say no more about a painful subject.
Later Years
In addition to his original books, Kemp translated a play by Tirso de Molina as The Love-Rogue (1923), and edited The Bronze Treasury (1927), "an anthology of 81 obscure English poets." Kemp's views turned somewhat more conservative with age; he rejected leftist and anarchist sympathies and
wrote approvingly of Jesus Christ as the "divine hobo" and the "Super
Tramp."
The hobo poet Harry Kemp hailed Jesus Christ as the "super-tramp" and
"divine hobo" for the man Jesus preached a social gospel, and consorted with outcasts and criminals. It wasn't Jesus' fault if the chuches that claimed him had grown repressive and corrupt. He had stood for voluntary poverty,
not self-satisfied greed. He had stood for justice and identified with the downtrodden, saying that what you do the least of God's creatures, you do to me.
Writing
According to Louis Untermeyer (editor of Modern American Poetry), Kemp's early collections (The Cry of Youth and The Passing God) are "full of every kind of poetry except the kind one might imagine Kemp would write. Instead
of crude and boisterous verse, here is precise and over-polished poetry." Untermeyer's opinion was that Chanteys and Ballads is "riper," with "the sense of personality more pronounced."<ref?Louis Untermeyer, ed., Modern American Poetry, Fourth Revised Edition, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1930; p. 376. Print.</ref>
Recognition
Kemp's reputation had declined into obscurity by the time of his death in 1960; but his role in the history of modern American literature and the American Left has brought renewed interest and further publication of his work.
There is a street named for him, Harry Kemp Way, in Provincetown.
In 1995, the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce made plans to create a First Landing Park to commemorate the Pilgrims' voyage in 1620. Ms. Ruth Hiebert made a donation in the name of her late father, Dr. Daniel Hieber, who,
along with Harry Kemp, the celebrated "Tramp Poet" of the 1920s literary world who abandoned Greenwich Village for life in a Provincetown dune shack, would reenact the first landing every year, complete with dubious costumes Kemp imagined the intrepid voyagers might have worn."It was all somewhat silly, but it did keep the true history alive," Ms. Hiebert told the Globe.
Publications
The Cry of Youth. New York: Kennerley, 1914.
The Thresher's Wife. New York: A. & C. Boni, 1914.
The Passing God: Songs for lovers (with introduction by Richard Le Gallienne). New York: Brentano's, 1919; London: Brentano's, 1922.
Chanteys and Ballads: Sea-chanteys, tramp-ballads, and other ballads and poems. New York: Brentano's, 1920.
The Sea and the Dunes, and other poems. New York: Brentano's, 1926.
Don Juan's Note-Book. New York: privately published; printed by Alex L. Hillman, 1929.
Where Now Green Gardens? Harry answers Omar. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown Publishers, 1945.
The Poet's Life of Christ: Songs of the living Lord. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown Publishers, 1946.
Provincetown Tideways (1948)
Poet of the Dunes: Songs of the dunes and the outer shore, with others in varying modes and moods. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown Publishers, 1952; Provincetown, MA: Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association, 1988.
Rhyme of Provincetown Nicknames. Providence, MA: Providence Publishers,
1954.
------------------------------------------------------------
Found in Drafts file.
Will Dockery wrote:
Harry Kemp (American poet)
Poems
"[http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1326.html Blind]"
*[http://www.poemhunter.com/harry-kemp/ Harry Kemp] at [[PoemHunter]] (36
poems)
*[http://allpoetry.com/Harry-Kemp Harry Kemp] at AllPoetry (38 poems)
Books
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Kemp,+Harry | name=Harry Kemp}}
About
*[http://www.eoneill.com/library/newsletter/iv_1-2/iv-1-2f.htm Harry Kemp: >> Lest we forget], ''The Eugene O'Neill newsletter''
*[http://www.jstor.org/stable/20570273?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents review >> of ''The Cry of Youth]'' in ''[[Poetry (magazine)|Poetry]]''
Wiki Biography:
http://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Harry_Kemp
This article is about the 20th-century American poet. For the 20th-century >> English poet & teacher, see Harry Kemp (UK poet).
Harry Hibbard Kemp (December 15, 1883 - August 5, 1960) was an American poet >> and prose writer of the twentieth century. He was known as (and promoted
himself as) the "Vagabond Poet", the "Villon of America", the "Hobo Poet", >> or the "Tramp Poet", and was a well-known popular literary figure of his
era.
Kemp was born in Youngstown, Ohio, the only son of a candymaker. He was
raised by his grandmother, in a house by the local train yards.
At the age of 17 he left home to become a common seaman. After returning to >> the United States he traveled across the country by riding the rails as a
hobo, carrying copies of Shakespeare, Shelley, and other poets in his
rucksack.
He later attended the University of Kansas, and while a student he began
publishing verse in newspapers and magazines.
Tramp poet
Kemp had a knack for self-promotion, what he called "the Art of
Spectacularism," and early learned to collaborate with and manipulate
journalists to attract attention to his work. He spent time in Paris in the >> early 1920s, along with the more famous members of the Lost Generation.
Among those influenced by, and working on the same path as Kemp were, in his >> autobiographical novel of Hobohemianism, W.H. Davies' The Autobiography of a >> Super-Tramp (1908), and the grim yet poetic realism of Maxim Gorky.
Kemp spent much of his maturity traveling; he stayed in a number of planned >> communities for varying lengths of time, then wrote autobiographical novels >> about his experiences. When not traveling he was a regular denizen of
Greenwich Village in New York City and Provincetown on Cape Cod in
Massachusetts, where he was associated with the Provincetown Players.
Kemp was also known as the "poet of the dunes." He lived on and off in a
shack in the dunes of Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for a period of >> about 40 years, and he died there in 1960. A 1934 Kemp poem, "The Last
Return," was written for the Coast Guard men who steadfastly worked to save >> the lives of those shipwrecked on Cape Cod's coast.
Kemp's Tramping on Life: An autobiographical narrative (1922) was one of the >> best selling "tramp autobiographies" of the 1900–1939 period.
Kemp knew many of the bohemian and progressive literary and cultural figures >> of his generation, including Elbert Hubbard, Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell,
Bernarr MacFadden, Sinclair Lewis, Max Eastman, Eugene O'Neill, Edmund
Wilson, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, and many others. Kemp played a role >> in the first stage production of O'Neill's earliest play, Bound East for
Cardiff. Kemp was physically imposing, "Tall, broad-shouldered, and robust," >> Wetzsteon, p. 334. and gained a reputation as a lover, sometimes of other
men's wives; he was involved in various scandals throughout his career. His >> part in Upton Sinclair's divorce was especially notorious in its day.
As a means of kidding Harry Kemp, George Nathan and I pretended to a vast
interest in Greenwich Village, and one day asked him to take us there and
show us the sights. He accepted eagerly, and we walked all the way from 331 >> Fourth Avenue. Whenever he pointed out a celebrity... we would stop short, >> stare fixedly, and make a show of being tremendously impressed. Finally,
almost with bated breath, Kemp indicated a second-story window in a
ramshackle house, and said: "When Oscar Wilde was in New York his girl lived >> there." "His girl?" demanded Nathan. "What in hell, Mr. Kemp, was Mr. Wilde >> doing with a *girl*?" For some reason unknown, this greatly upset Kemp, and >> he spent half an hour trying to convince Nathan and me that, in addition to >> his homosexual practice, Wilde also indulged in more normal sin. We
professed to regard it as a slander upon his principles, and denounced Kemp >> for spreading such stories about a dead and defenseless man. He then got
into a considerable lather and proposed to produce the woman, but we begged >> him to say no more about a painful subject.
Later Years
In addition to his original books, Kemp translated a play by Tirso de Molina >> as The Love-Rogue (1923), and edited The Bronze Treasury (1927), "an
anthology of 81 obscure English poets." Kemp's views turned somewhat more
conservative with age; he rejected leftist and anarchist sympathies and
wrote approvingly of Jesus Christ as the "divine hobo" and the "Super
Tramp."
The hobo poet Harry Kemp hailed Jesus Christ as the "super-tramp" and
"divine hobo" for the man Jesus preached a social gospel, and consorted with >> outcasts and criminals. It wasn't Jesus' fault if the chuches that claimed >> him had grown repressive and corrupt. He had stood for voluntary poverty,
not self-satisfied greed. He had stood for justice and identified with the >> downtrodden, saying that what you do the least of God's creatures, you do to >> me.
Writing
According to Louis Untermeyer (editor of Modern American Poetry), Kemp's
early collections (The Cry of Youth and The Passing God) are "full of every >> kind of poetry except the kind one might imagine Kemp would write. Instead >> of crude and boisterous verse, here is precise and over-polished poetry."
Untermeyer's opinion was that Chanteys and Ballads is "riper," with "the
sense of personality more pronounced."<ref?Louis Untermeyer, ed., Modern
American Poetry, Fourth Revised Edition, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co., >> 1930; p. 376. Print.</ref>
Recognition
Kemp's reputation had declined into obscurity by the time of his death in
1960; but his role in the history of modern American literature and the
American Left has brought renewed interest and further publication of his
work.
There is a street named for him, Harry Kemp Way, in Provincetown.
In 1995, the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce made plans to create a First >> Landing Park to commemorate the Pilgrims' voyage in 1620. Ms. Ruth Hiebert >> made a donation in the name of her late father, Dr. Daniel Hieber, who,
along with Harry Kemp, the celebrated "Tramp Poet" of the 1920s literary
world who abandoned Greenwich Village for life in a Provincetown dune shack, >> would reenact the first landing every year, complete with dubious costumes >> Kemp imagined the intrepid voyagers might have worn."It was all somewhat
silly, but it did keep the true history alive," Ms. Hiebert told the Globe.
Publications
The Cry of Youth. New York: Kennerley, 1914.
The Thresher's Wife. New York: A. & C. Boni, 1914.
The Passing God: Songs for lovers (with introduction by Richard Le
Gallienne). New York: Brentano's, 1919; London: Brentano's, 1922.
Chanteys and Ballads: Sea-chanteys, tramp-ballads, and other ballads and
poems. New York: Brentano's, 1920.
The Sea and the Dunes, and other poems. New York: Brentano's, 1926.
Don Juan's Note-Book. New York: privately published; printed by Alex L.
Hillman, 1929.
Where Now Green Gardens? Harry answers Omar. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown >> Publishers, 1945.
The Poet's Life of Christ: Songs of the living Lord. Provincetown, MA:
Provincetown Publishers, 1946.
Provincetown Tideways (1948)
Poet of the Dunes: Songs of the dunes and the outer shore, with others in
varying modes and moods. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown Publishers, 1952;
Provincetown, MA: Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association, 1988.
Rhyme of Provincetown Nicknames. Providence, MA: Providence Publishers,
1954.
------------------------------------------------------------
Found in Drafts file.
Again... Kemp is quite fantastic....!
General-Zod wrote:
Will Dockery wrote:
Harry Kemp (American poet)
Poems
"[http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1326.html Blind]"
*[http://www.poemhunter.com/harry-kemp/ Harry Kemp] at [[PoemHunter]] (36 >>> poems)
*[http://allpoetry.com/Harry-Kemp Harry Kemp] at AllPoetry (38 poems)
Books
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Kemp,+Harry | name=Harry Kemp}}
About
*[http://www.eoneill.com/library/newsletter/iv_1-2/iv-1-2f.htm Harry Kemp: >>> Lest we forget], ''The Eugene O'Neill newsletter''
*[http://www.jstor.org/stable/20570273?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents review >>> of ''The Cry of Youth]'' in ''[[Poetry (magazine)|Poetry]]''
Wiki Biography:
http://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Harry_Kemp
This article is about the 20th-century American poet. For the 20th-century >>> English poet & teacher, see Harry Kemp (UK poet).
Harry Hibbard Kemp (December 15, 1883 - August 5, 1960) was an American poet
and prose writer of the twentieth century. He was known as (and promoted >>> himself as) the "Vagabond Poet", the "Villon of America", the "Hobo Poet", >>> or the "Tramp Poet", and was a well-known popular literary figure of his >>> era.
Kemp was born in Youngstown, Ohio, the only son of a candymaker. He was
raised by his grandmother, in a house by the local train yards.
At the age of 17 he left home to become a common seaman. After returning to >>> the United States he traveled across the country by riding the rails as a >>> hobo, carrying copies of Shakespeare, Shelley, and other poets in his
rucksack.
He later attended the University of Kansas, and while a student he began >>> publishing verse in newspapers and magazines.
Tramp poet
Kemp had a knack for self-promotion, what he called "the Art of
Spectacularism," and early learned to collaborate with and manipulate
journalists to attract attention to his work. He spent time in Paris in the >>> early 1920s, along with the more famous members of the Lost Generation.
Among those influenced by, and working on the same path as Kemp were, in his
autobiographical novel of Hobohemianism, W.H. Davies' The Autobiography of a
Super-Tramp (1908), and the grim yet poetic realism of Maxim Gorky.
Kemp spent much of his maturity traveling; he stayed in a number of planned >>> communities for varying lengths of time, then wrote autobiographical novels >>> about his experiences. When not traveling he was a regular denizen of
Greenwich Village in New York City and Provincetown on Cape Cod in
Massachusetts, where he was associated with the Provincetown Players.
Kemp was also known as the "poet of the dunes." He lived on and off in a >>> shack in the dunes of Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for a period of
about 40 years, and he died there in 1960. A 1934 Kemp poem, "The Last
Return," was written for the Coast Guard men who steadfastly worked to save >>> the lives of those shipwrecked on Cape Cod's coast.
Kemp's Tramping on Life: An autobiographical narrative (1922) was one of the
best selling "tramp autobiographies" of the 1900–1939 period.
Kemp knew many of the bohemian and progressive literary and cultural figures
of his generation, including Elbert Hubbard, Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, >>> Bernarr MacFadden, Sinclair Lewis, Max Eastman, Eugene O'Neill, Edmund
Wilson, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, and many others. Kemp played a role >>> in the first stage production of O'Neill's earliest play, Bound East for >>> Cardiff. Kemp was physically imposing, "Tall, broad-shouldered, and robust,"
Wetzsteon, p. 334. and gained a reputation as a lover, sometimes of other >>> men's wives; he was involved in various scandals throughout his career. His >>> part in Upton Sinclair's divorce was especially notorious in its day.
As a means of kidding Harry Kemp, George Nathan and I pretended to a vast >>> interest in Greenwich Village, and one day asked him to take us there and >>> show us the sights. He accepted eagerly, and we walked all the way from 331 >>> Fourth Avenue. Whenever he pointed out a celebrity... we would stop short, >>> stare fixedly, and make a show of being tremendously impressed. Finally, >>> almost with bated breath, Kemp indicated a second-story window in a
ramshackle house, and said: "When Oscar Wilde was in New York his girl lived
there." "His girl?" demanded Nathan. "What in hell, Mr. Kemp, was Mr. Wilde
doing with a *girl*?" For some reason unknown, this greatly upset Kemp, and >>> he spent half an hour trying to convince Nathan and me that, in addition to >>> his homosexual practice, Wilde also indulged in more normal sin. We
professed to regard it as a slander upon his principles, and denounced Kemp >>> for spreading such stories about a dead and defenseless man. He then got >>> into a considerable lather and proposed to produce the woman, but we begged >>> him to say no more about a painful subject.
Later Years
In addition to his original books, Kemp translated a play by Tirso de Molina
as The Love-Rogue (1923), and edited The Bronze Treasury (1927), "an
anthology of 81 obscure English poets." Kemp's views turned somewhat more >>> conservative with age; he rejected leftist and anarchist sympathies and
wrote approvingly of Jesus Christ as the "divine hobo" and the "Super
Tramp."
The hobo poet Harry Kemp hailed Jesus Christ as the "super-tramp" and
"divine hobo" for the man Jesus preached a social gospel, and consorted with
outcasts and criminals. It wasn't Jesus' fault if the chuches that claimed >>> him had grown repressive and corrupt. He had stood for voluntary poverty, >>> not self-satisfied greed. He had stood for justice and identified with the >>> downtrodden, saying that what you do the least of God's creatures, you do to
me.
Writing
According to Louis Untermeyer (editor of Modern American Poetry), Kemp's >>> early collections (The Cry of Youth and The Passing God) are "full of every >>> kind of poetry except the kind one might imagine Kemp would write. Instead >>> of crude and boisterous verse, here is precise and over-polished poetry." >>> Untermeyer's opinion was that Chanteys and Ballads is "riper," with "the >>> sense of personality more pronounced."<ref?Louis Untermeyer, ed., Modern >>> American Poetry, Fourth Revised Edition, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co., >>> 1930; p. 376. Print.</ref>
Recognition
Kemp's reputation had declined into obscurity by the time of his death in >>> 1960; but his role in the history of modern American literature and the
American Left has brought renewed interest and further publication of his >>> work.
There is a street named for him, Harry Kemp Way, in Provincetown.
In 1995, the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce made plans to create a First >>> Landing Park to commemorate the Pilgrims' voyage in 1620. Ms. Ruth Hiebert >>> made a donation in the name of her late father, Dr. Daniel Hieber, who,
along with Harry Kemp, the celebrated "Tramp Poet" of the 1920s literary >>> world who abandoned Greenwich Village for life in a Provincetown dune shack,
would reenact the first landing every year, complete with dubious costumes >>> Kemp imagined the intrepid voyagers might have worn."It was all somewhat >>> silly, but it did keep the true history alive," Ms. Hiebert told the Globe.
Publications
The Cry of Youth. New York: Kennerley, 1914.
The Thresher's Wife. New York: A. & C. Boni, 1914.
The Passing God: Songs for lovers (with introduction by Richard Le
Gallienne). New York: Brentano's, 1919; London: Brentano's, 1922.
Chanteys and Ballads: Sea-chanteys, tramp-ballads, and other ballads and >>> poems. New York: Brentano's, 1920.
The Sea and the Dunes, and other poems. New York: Brentano's, 1926.
Don Juan's Note-Book. New York: privately published; printed by Alex L.
Hillman, 1929.
Where Now Green Gardens? Harry answers Omar. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown >>> Publishers, 1945.
The Poet's Life of Christ: Songs of the living Lord. Provincetown, MA:
Provincetown Publishers, 1946.
Provincetown Tideways (1948)
Poet of the Dunes: Songs of the dunes and the outer shore, with others in >>> varying modes and moods. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown Publishers, 1952; >>> Provincetown, MA: Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association, 1988.
Rhyme of Provincetown Nicknames. Providence, MA: Providence Publishers,
1954.
------------------------------------------------------------
Found in Drafts file.
Again... Kemp is quite fantastic....!
Good evening, agreed.
Will Dockery wrote:
Harry Kemp (American poet)
Poems
"[http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1326.html Blind]"
*[http://www.poemhunter.com/harry-kemp/ Harry Kemp] at [[PoemHunter]] (36 >>>> poems)
*[http://allpoetry.com/Harry-Kemp Harry Kemp] at AllPoetry (38 poems)
Books
* {{Gutenberg author |id=Kemp,+Harry | name=Harry Kemp}}
About
*[http://www.eoneill.com/library/newsletter/iv_1-2/iv-1-2f.htm Harry Kemp: >>>> Lest we forget], ''The Eugene O'Neill newsletter''
*[http://www.jstor.org/stable/20570273?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents review >>>> of ''The Cry of Youth]'' in ''[[Poetry (magazine)|Poetry]]''
Wiki Biography:
http://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/Harry_Kemp
This article is about the 20th-century American poet. For the 20th-century >>>> English poet & teacher, see Harry Kemp (UK poet).
Harry Hibbard Kemp (December 15, 1883 - August 5, 1960) was an American poet
and prose writer of the twentieth century. He was known as (and promoted >>>> himself as) the "Vagabond Poet", the "Villon of America", the "Hobo Poet", >>>> or the "Tramp Poet", and was a well-known popular literary figure of his >>>> era.
Kemp was born in Youngstown, Ohio, the only son of a candymaker. He was >>>> raised by his grandmother, in a house by the local train yards.
At the age of 17 he left home to become a common seaman. After returning to
the United States he traveled across the country by riding the rails as a >>>> hobo, carrying copies of Shakespeare, Shelley, and other poets in his
rucksack.
He later attended the University of Kansas, and while a student he began >>>> publishing verse in newspapers and magazines.
Tramp poet
Kemp had a knack for self-promotion, what he called "the Art of
Spectacularism," and early learned to collaborate with and manipulate
journalists to attract attention to his work. He spent time in Paris in the
early 1920s, along with the more famous members of the Lost Generation. >>>> Among those influenced by, and working on the same path as Kemp were, in his
autobiographical novel of Hobohemianism, W.H. Davies' The Autobiography of a
Super-Tramp (1908), and the grim yet poetic realism of Maxim Gorky.
Kemp spent much of his maturity traveling; he stayed in a number of planned
communities for varying lengths of time, then wrote autobiographical novels
about his experiences. When not traveling he was a regular denizen of
Greenwich Village in New York City and Provincetown on Cape Cod in
Massachusetts, where he was associated with the Provincetown Players.
Kemp was also known as the "poet of the dunes." He lived on and off in a >>>> shack in the dunes of Provincetown, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, for a period of
about 40 years, and he died there in 1960. A 1934 Kemp poem, "The Last >>>> Return," was written for the Coast Guard men who steadfastly worked to save
the lives of those shipwrecked on Cape Cod's coast.
Kemp's Tramping on Life: An autobiographical narrative (1922) was one of the
best selling "tramp autobiographies" of the 1900–1939 period.
Bernarr MacFadden, Sinclair Lewis, Max Eastman, Eugene O'Neill, EdmundKemp knew many of the bohemian and progressive literary and cultural figures
of his generation, including Elbert Hubbard, Upton Sinclair, Ida Tarbell, >>
Cardiff. Kemp was physically imposing, "Tall, broad-shouldered, and robust," >>>> Wetzsteon, p. 334. and gained a reputation as a lover, sometimes of other >>>> men's wives; he was involved in various scandals throughout his career. HisWilson, John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, and many others. Kemp played a role
in the first stage production of O'Neill's earliest play, Bound East for >>
part in Upton Sinclair's divorce was especially notorious in its day.
into a considerable lather and proposed to produce the woman, but we begged >>>> him to say no more about a painful subject.As a means of kidding Harry Kemp, George Nathan and I pretended to a vast >>>> interest in Greenwich Village, and one day asked him to take us there and >>>> show us the sights. He accepted eagerly, and we walked all the way from 331
Fourth Avenue. Whenever he pointed out a celebrity... we would stop short, >>>> stare fixedly, and make a show of being tremendously impressed. Finally, >>>> almost with bated breath, Kemp indicated a second-story window in a
ramshackle house, and said: "When Oscar Wilde was in New York his girl lived
there." "His girl?" demanded Nathan. "What in hell, Mr. Kemp, was Mr. Wilde
doing with a *girl*?" For some reason unknown, this greatly upset Kemp, and
he spent half an hour trying to convince Nathan and me that, in addition to
his homosexual practice, Wilde also indulged in more normal sin. We
professed to regard it as a slander upon his principles, and denounced Kemp
for spreading such stories about a dead and defenseless man. He then got >>
Later Years
In addition to his original books, Kemp translated a play by Tirso de Molina >>
as The Love-Rogue (1923), and edited The Bronze Treasury (1927), "an
conservative with age; he rejected leftist and anarchist sympathies andanthology of 81 obscure English poets." Kemp's views turned somewhat more >>
wrote approvingly of Jesus Christ as the "divine hobo" and the "Super Tramp."
The hobo poet Harry Kemp hailed Jesus Christ as the "super-tramp" and
"divine hobo" for the man Jesus preached a social gospel, and consorted with >>
outcasts and criminals. It wasn't Jesus' fault if the chuches that claimed >>
him had grown repressive and corrupt. He had stood for voluntary poverty,
not self-satisfied greed. He had stood for justice and identified with the >>
downtrodden, saying that what you do the least of God's creatures, you do to me.
Writing
According to Louis Untermeyer (editor of Modern American Poetry), Kemp's
early collections (The Cry of Youth and The Passing God) are "full of every >>
kind of poetry except the kind one might imagine Kemp would write. Instead >>
of crude and boisterous verse, here is precise and over-polished poetry."
Untermeyer's opinion was that Chanteys and Ballads is "riper," with "the sense of personality more pronounced." -Louis Untermeyer, ed., Modern
American Poetry, Fourth Revised Edition, New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co. 1930; p. 376. Print.</ref>
Recognition
Kemp's reputation had declined into obscurity by the time of his death in
1960; but his role in the history of modern American literature and the
American Left has brought renewed interest and further publication of his >>>> work.
There is a street named for him, Harry Kemp Way, in Provincetown.
In 1995, the Provincetown Chamber of Commerce made plans to create a First >>>> Landing Park to commemorate the Pilgrims' voyage in 1620. Ms. Ruth Hiebert >>>> made a donation in the name of her late father, Dr. Daniel Hieber, who, >>>> along with Harry Kemp, the celebrated "Tramp Poet" of the 1920s literary >>>> world who abandoned Greenwich Village for life in a Provincetown dune shack,
would reenact the first landing every year, complete with dubious costumes >>
Kemp imagined the intrepid voyagers might have worn."It was all somewhat
silly, but it did keep the true history alive," Ms. Hiebert told the Globe.
Publications
The Cry of Youth. New York: Kennerley, 1914.
varying modes and moods. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown Publishers, 1952;The Thresher's Wife. New York: A. & C. Boni, 1914.
The Passing God: Songs for lovers (with introduction by Richard Le
Gallienne). New York: Brentano's, 1919; London: Brentano's, 1922.
Chanteys and Ballads: Sea-chanteys, tramp-ballads, and other ballads and >>>> poems. New York: Brentano's, 1920.
The Sea and the Dunes, and other poems. New York: Brentano's, 1926.
Don Juan's Note-Book. New York: privately published; printed by Alex L. >>>> Hillman, 1929.
Where Now Green Gardens? Harry answers Omar. Provincetown, MA: Provincetown
Publishers, 1945.
The Poet's Life of Christ: Songs of the living Lord. Provincetown, MA: >>>> Provincetown Publishers, 1946.
Provincetown Tideways (1948)
Poet of the Dunes: Songs of the dunes and the outer shore, with others in >>
Provincetown, MA: Cape Cod Pilgrim Memorial Association, 1988.
Rhyme of Provincetown Nicknames. Providence, MA: Providence Publishers, 1954.
Again... Kemp is quite fantastic....! GOOD DAY to you....!
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