p. 350 Sugar injections: Ridge to Lawson, [Nov. 1937].
p. 350 “Sensibility, not an intellect”: Tate 1931.
p. 350 Fatal Interview sold: Milford 2001, 385.
p. 350 “Preoccupation with social justice”: Brooks 1935.
p. 350 Conflating women writers with children: Newcomb 1995.
p. 350 “The Woman as Poet”: Ransom 1938, 77-8, 103-104.
p. 350 “So thorough was the denigration”: Drake 1987, 254.
p. 350 “A too compassionate art is half an art”: Rich 1951. See also Rich 2002, 5, for her struggle with feeling and form.
p. 350-351 “A sordid decade”: Filreis 2008, 34 fn 36, 125. See also Nash 1998, 87.
p. 351 “Devoid of education”: Kempton 1955, 170.
p. 351 “Defy syntax and decency”: “Cubists of All Sorts,” New York Times 16 Mar. 1913.
p. 351 Walton nearly lost her job: Filreis 2008, 144.
p. 351 “Embattled pacifism”: Alfred Kreymborg to Henry Rago, 1 Nov. 1956 [misdated 1954].
p. 351 Untermeyer’s unmooring: Miller 1987, 263-4.
p. 351 Rukeyser trailed by FBI: Filreis 2008, 146; and U.S. Dept. of Justice, Muriel Rukeyser (file no. 77-27812), vault.fbi.gov.
p. 351 “They destroyed me”: Kreymborg 1949.
p. 351 Williams red-baited: Filreis 2008, 309-312.
p. 351 “No such idea in his head”: Daiches 1956, 57.
p. 351 “Unsullied continuity”: Filreis 2008, 51.
p. 351 “Nothing wrong with me”: Ridge to Marshall, 22 Nov. 1937.
p. 351-352 “Interested a migraine specialist”: Ridge to Content, 23 Nov. 1937.
p. 352 47 Morton Street: ibid.
p. 352 “I’m writing…Tiny crowded apartment”: Ridge to Beck Strand, 4 July 1939.
p. 352 “It’s like a phallus”: ibid.
p. 352 Lawrence and phallic symbolism: Millett 2000, 237-239.
p. 352 “O, the worship of the serpent”: Anonymous 1889.
p. 353 “In the likeness of God”: Wall 1920, 5, illustrations on 372.
p. 353 “Plato…explained the amatory instincts”: Wall 1920, 140.
p. 353 “Rushes into things”: Ridge to Marshall, 10 July [1939].
p. 353 “Women are more determined to live”: ibid.
p. 353 165 Columbia Heights: Wilder to Ridge, 13 Nov. 1939.
p. 353 “Much work in this large apartment”: Ridge, Diary, 29 Mar. 1940.
p. 353 Morphy the world champion: Abbott 2011.
p. 353 Marcel Duchamp: Frank Brady, personal communication, said this: “Duchamp played everyone.” I can confirm this as my second husband, not at all renowned as a player, also played with Duchamp in the 60s.
p. 353 Study of French was useful: Ridge to Lawson, 15 Sept. 1935.
p. 353 1940 census: U.S. Census, NYC, Kings County, Columbia Heights no. 387, 22 Apr. 1940, ancestry.com.
p. 353 1930 census: U.S. Census Bureau 1930.
Chapter 38 — “The Fire of the World is Running Through Me”
p. 354 “Under the deepest hell is another”: Ridge, Diary, 17 Jan. 1940.
p. 354 “Most intense darkness”: Ridge, Diary, 14 Nov. 1940.
p. 354 “Talked in bed this morning”: Ridge, Diary, 5 Mar. 1940.
p. 354 One meal a day: Ridge, Diary, 6 Mar. 1940.
p. 355 “Addicted to self-pity”: Ridge, Diary, 29 Mar. 1940.
p. 355 “Pampered intellectual gigolo”: Dirda 1996.
p. 355 “He was a jerk”: Berryman 2007, 3.
p. 355 “The long convalescence which is my life”: Rilke 2008, 178.
p. 355 First career move: ibid.
p. 355 Squandered in the most expensive hotels: Dirda. 1996.
p. 355 “The question, L.R.”: qtd. in Baer 2014.
p. 355 Monograph on Rodin: Rilke 1919.
p. 356 “You must change your life”: Rilke, “Archaic Torso of Apollo,” available online via poets.org.
p. 356 “Capitalism is one of the great obstacles”: Ridge, Diary, 28 Mar. 1940.
p. 356 “Her friends are very loyal”: Ridge, Diary, 3 May 1940.
p. 356 “And never say how or why”: Scott to Ridge, 2 May 1940.
p. 356 Scott’s increasing paranoia: Ridge, Diary, 2 May 1940. “Though she lived for an additional 22 years Scott was unable to publish her work after 1941, due in part to its controversial nature and her refusal to accept her publishers’ suggestions for changes, as well as to her growing paranoia about conspiracies directed against her.” From “Evelyn Scott: An Inventory of Her Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center,” Texas Archival Resources Online, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
p. 356 “Upset over a letter from Evelyn”: Ridge, Diary, 3 May 1940.
p. 356 Heart attack: Ridge, Diary, 4 Apr. 1940.
p. 356 “One rage leads to another”: ibid.
p. 356 “Frenetic desire for equilibrium”: qtd. in Drake 1987, 2.
p. 357 “I love the desert”: Ridge, Diary, 6 Apr. 1940.
p. 357 “Blood last night”: Ridge, Diary, 8 Apr. 1940.
p. 357 “The imperishable light”: ibid.
p. 357 Jung’s shadow: Fordham 1985.
p. 357 “An even bolder front”: Ridge 1919, 19.
p. 357 “Eyes full of black light”: Ridge 1920, 27.
p. 357 “Spirituality in a state of immaturity”: Ridge, Diary, 2 Apr. 1940.
p. 357 Apr. 1940: “Historical Events for Apr. 1940,” historyorb.com, and “Nazi War Crimes: The Katyn Massacre,” jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
p. 357-358 “Appalled by the rigidity of contours”: Ridge to Floyd, 24 Apr. 1940.
p. 358 Smith Act against Bridges: Steele 1999, 81.
p. 358 “The constitution must not be expanded”: Ridge to Floyd, 24 Apr. 1940.
p. 358 Smith Act became law: Simkin 2014, “Alien Registration Act.”
p. 358 “A refusal to face things”: Ridge, Diary, 30 Apr. 1940.
p. 358 Executor’s discovery in the 1970s: Sproat to Burke, 19 June 1978.
p. 358 “The crowd of me”: Ridge, Diary, 3 May 1940.
p. 358 “Continue on one meal a day”: ibid.
p. 359 “A column of smoke pillared”: Ridge, Diary, 5 May 1940.
p. 359 “My violent reaction”: Ridge, Diary, 11 May 1940.
p. 359 “No money even to buy papers”: Ridge, Diary, 13 May 1940.
p. 359 “Speech…more clarifying”: Ridge, Diary, 19 May 1940.
p. 359 “A record of problems”: Ridge, Diary, 9 June 1940.
p. 359 “I felt better for her coming”: ibid.
p. 360 She regretted not helping Emma: ibid.
p. 360 About Spengler: Stimley 2014.
p. 360 American’s source on Lincoln for decades: Hurt 1999.
p. 360 “A stupendous achievement”: Ridge, Diary, 29 June 1940 and 2 May 1940.
p. 360 “Blackout of the mind’s light”: Ridge, Diary, 12 July 1940.
p. 360 Mixed feelings about 4th of July, happy to celebrate French Revolution: Ridge, Diary, 22 May 1940.
p. 360 “There may be a Woman Dance”: Ridge, Diary, 5 July 1940.
p. 361 “Could not even finish dressing”: Ridge, Diary, 10 July 1940.
p. 361 “Without underwear”: Ridge, Diary, 21 July 1940.
p. 361 “No light in him”: Ridge, Diary, 18 Aug. 1940.
p. 361 “Simple and sweet book”: Ridge, Diary, 10 July 1940.
p. 361 “Autobiography of a Revolutionist”: Kropotkin 1899.
p. 361 Kropotkin’s funeral: Avrich 1995, 69.
p. 361 “The Smile”: Ridge, Diary, 13 July 1940.
p. 361 “Intelligent businessman”: Ridge, Diary, 18 Aug. 1940.
p. 362 Woolley’s suggestion: “Iraq’s Ancient Past: Ur,” penn.museum/sites/iraq.
p. 362 “Abraham the first concept of the male”: Ridge, Diary, 8 Aug. 1940.
p. 362 “To go forward, without fear”: Ridge, Diary, 26 Aug. 1940.
<
br /> p. 362 “Fifty minutes to wash the spinach”: ibid.
p. 362 “The heart cannot shake itself free”: Ridge, Diary, 3 Sept. 1940.
p. 362 “The god of battles”: Ridge, Diary, 12 Sept. 1940.
p. 362 Hanna Larsen: Ridge, Diary, 13 Sept. 1940; and “The Hanna Astrup Larsen Collection,” luther.edu/anthropology.
p. 363 Lagerlof: Ridge 1919, 6, 11, 13.
p. 363 111 Montague Street: Ridge to Florence Rena Sabin, [1941].
p. 363 It is still garlanded: “The Street Necrology of Downtown Brooklyn,” forgotten-ny.com.
p. 363 Auden et al. lived together: Tippens 2005.
p. 363 Wolfe lived a few doors down: Kuban 2011.
p. 363 “She is too complacent”: Ridge, Diary, 16 Nov. 1940.
p. 363 “Acres of bad poetry”: “Edna St. Vincent Millay: Biography,” poetryfoundation.org.
p. 363 “Look droll”: Ridge, Diary, 24 Nov. 1940.
p. 363 “Rushing to get in words when I begin to speak”: Ridge, Diary, 9 Dec. 1940.
p. 363 “Over some bridgeless space”: ibid.
p. 364 “My thought is now a strong current”: ibid.
p. 364 “The fire of the world”: Ridge to Marshall, [1940].
p. 364 Lawson attended a party for Wright: Ridge, Diary, 12 Dec. 1940.
p. 364 Native Son: “Richard Wright: Biography,” math.buffalo.edu.
p. 364 “Our bodies must be swarming with this life”: Ridge, Diary, 17 Dec. 1940.
p. 364 Rheumatoid arthritis: Ridge, Diary, 31 Jan. 1941.
p. 364 “Through this drying reed of me”: Ridge, Diary, 8 Feb. 1941.
p. 365 “When I am angry and disturbed”: ibid.
p. 365 “O splendid obituary”: Ridge, Diary, 9 Mar. 1941.
p. 365 “The factories had emptied”: Ridge, Diary, 12 Mar. 1941.
p. 366 “Heart”: Ridge, Diary, 15 Mar. 1941.
p. 366 “If I were only well enough”: Ridge, Diary, 8 Apr. 1941.
p. 366 Exchanged poems with Sabin: Ridge to Rena Sabin, [1941].
p. 366 Dr. Sabin: “The Florence R. Sabin Papers: Biographical Information,” profiles.nlm.nih.gov.
p. 366 Ridge thanked Floyd: Ridge to Floyd, 26 Mar. 1941.
p. 366 “Davy will have to get his own breakfast”: Ridge, Diary, 11 Apr. 1941.
p. 367 “Beauty, beyond all”: Ridge 1941.
p. 367 Ridge died: Death Certificate for Lola Ridge Lawson, 21 May 1941, File No. 10849, Bureau of Records, Department of Health, Borough of Brooklyn.
Chapter 39 — Legacy: Fire and Smoke
p. 368 “Capacity to shatter the patriarchal”: Drake 1987, 210.
p. 368 “Poor Lola”: qtd. in Avrich 2005, 346.
p. 368 Diagnosed with arthritis: Ridge, Diary, 31 Jan. 1941.
p. 368 Death by heart failure: Kelly and Hamilton 2007; and “Interstitial Lung Disease,” mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions.
p. 368 Buried as Lola Ridge Lawson: Death Certificate for Lola Ridge Lawson, 21 May 1941, File No. 10849, Bureau of Records, Department of Health, Borough of Brooklyn.
p. 368 “Dedicated the poem “Still Water”: Ridge 1927, 78.
p. 369 “I went to Lola Ridge’s funeral”: Marianne Moore to Hildegard Watson, 23 May 1941, in Moore 1998, 414.
p. 369 Funeral attendance: Memorial Service for Lola Ridge, 22 May 1941, Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia, PA.
p. 369 Cox-McCormack: Finding aid to the Nancy Cox-McCormack Papers, Tennessee State Library and Archives.
p. 369 Ridgely Torrence: “Ridgely Torrence,” Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition, 2014.
p. 369 Friends with Moody: “Torrence, Frederic Ridgely,” ohiocenterforthebook.org.
p. 369 Romany Marie: “25th Anniversary Committee,” Modern School of Stelton, New Jersey: Modern School of Stelton, 1940.
p. 369 Candle burning at both ends: Browning 1996; and Wetzsteon 2003, 366.
p. 370 Detroit News: Bernand-Wehner, correspondence with Michele Leggott 8 Apr. 2011.
p. 370 Radio operator: ibid.
p. 370 Three children: Bernand-Wehner, correspondence with Michele Leggott, 3 Aug. 2011; 9 Mar. 2014.
p. 370 “Big depression”: Bernand-Wehner, correspondence with author. Mar. 15, 2013.
p. 370 Subscription to Saturday Review: Bernand-Wehner, email correspondence with author, 23 Feb. 2015.
p. 370 Appreciation and farewell: Benét 1941.
p. 370 Unpublished poems: Catherine Daly, email correspondence with author, 1 Nov. 2014.
p. 370 “I took the wrong way with him”: qtd. in Pritchard 1985, 222.
p. 370 Wylie’s son: Drake 1987, 123.
p. 370 Boyles’ daughters: Pritchard 1994.
p. 370 “In a class with the greater artists”: Drake 1987, 143.
p. 370 “Such as a shark or a crocodile”: qtd. in Callard 1986, 81.
p. 370 Plath’s son: Bates 2009.
p. 370 “Welcome to hell”: Wright 2006.
p. 370 Keith’s suicide: Bernand-Wehner, correspondence with author, 15 Mar. 2013.
p. 370 Didn’t know his father’s name: Bernand-Wehner, personal communication 6 June 2015.
p. 371 “House of a Thousand Bargains”: Samuel A. DeWitt to Art Young, 15 Nov. 1934, Art Young Papers, University of Michigan Special Collections Library, Ann Arbor, MI. See also dewitt-tool.com/about-us.aspx.
p. 371 Idylls of the Ghetto: Bonner 1946, 49, 255; and Coodley 2013, 17.
p. 371 “Seated Socialists Formally Resign,” New York Times 24 Sept. 1920.
p. 371 Sinclair based a character on DeWitt: “Sam DeWitt,” factualworld.com.
p. 371 “I found the whole group beyond endurance”: Kramer 1994.
p. 371 “Energized with ideas and visions”: Official Bulletin, Poetry Society of America Oct. 1941: 2.
p. 371 Zukofsky and Simpson: Davidson 1950, 22.
p. 371 Jeremy Ingalls: Gonzalez 2001.
p. 371 Killed in a car accident: Sproat to Burke, 31 Jan. 1978.
p. 372 “Harassed by bodily infirmity”: Benét 1941.
p. 372 Reviews mentioned her health: Hicks 1930.
p. 372 “Fighting Pain and Death”: Bradley 1929.
p. 372 “Intimate terms with death”: Official Bulletin, Poetry Society of America Oct. 1941: 2.
p. 372 “In terms of a saintliness”: Gregory and Zaturenska 1946, 445.
p. 372 “Like mounting Jacob’s ladder”: enclosure to Ridge, in Scott to Lawson, 6 Aug. [1932].
p. 372 “If religion weren’t fear worship”: ibid.
p. 372 “Felt by a saint”: Kreymborg 1918/19, 337.
p. 373 John Gould Fletcher to James Franklin Lewis, 29 Mar. 1943, in Fletcher 1996, 202.
p. 373 “Who in one lifetime”: Rukeyser 1994.
p. 373 “The old men of the world”: Ridge 1918, “The Fires.”
p. 373 Theory of Flight: Benét 1935.
p. 373 “A poet not a propagandist”: ibid.
p. 373 Five Rukeyser poems: Poetry Oct. 1935.
p. 373 Rexroth recited at the Dill Pickle Club: Hamalian 1992, 16.
p. 374 “These poor people aren’t poets”: Rexroth 1991, 124.
p. 374 Hayden traced his influences: Hamalian 1992, 16; Wald 1994, 196; and Hayden 1984, 134.
p. 374 “A dubious theme in Western culture”: Hayden 1984, 134.
p. 375 “Over-reaching ambition”: Lawrence 1947, 15. He continues, “…yet in many ways these are good poets.”
p. 375 Glick’s obituary: “Henrietta Glick, Secretary and Composer,” Chicago Sun-Times 2 May 1994, 51.
p. 375 Marsh: Kukil 2014.
p. 375 Gardner: Ridge to Lawson, 19 Sept. 1930.
p. 375 Ned Rorem: Boosey and Hawkes [c1979] and Orchard Enterprises 1983.
p. 375: Edie Hill: Hill 2011.
p. 375 Parallel Octave Chorus: “The First Sound Files of Autumn” 8ve: the parallel octave chorus, 18 Sept. 2012. paroct.com/2012/09/18/the-first-sound-files-of-autumn-september-9-recordings/.
p. 375 Frederick Frahm: Frahm n.d.
p. 375 Melissa Dunphy: Dunphy 2014.
p. 375 Sean Doherty: Doherty 2015.
p. 375 Ron Wray: Wray 2015.
p. 375 “Wild honey fed her”: Benét 1947, 83.
p. 375 “One of the most remarkable long poems”: Editorial, The Saturday Review of Literature 31 May 1941: 8.
p. 375 “No surprise that worthwhile poets … discredited”: Share 2009.
p. 376 “People felt the necessity”: McAlmon and Boyle 1984, 25.
p. 376 “More complete self-expression”: Ridge to Scott, n.d.
p. 376 “Anarchy is the philosophy I feel closest to”: ibid.
p. 376 “First requisite for a great book”: Ridge, Diary, 8 Feb. 1941.
p. 376 “Human rights movement”: Ridge 1981/1919, 18.
p. 377 “Anarchism is about responsibility”: Critchley 2007, 125.
p. 377 She attended three times: Marianne Moore to Lawson, 16 Dec. 1944, 7 June 1951, and 8 July 1960.
p. 377 Lawson’s subsequent marriages: Lawson 2010/1976, xxviii, xxiii fn 25.
p. 377 Friends with Whitaker: ibid., xvi.
p. 377 Dinner with Fischer: Brady 2011, 64-65.
p. 377 Lawson made Brady pay: Frank Brady, personal communication. 9 June 2014.
p. 377 Sold a few copies: ibid.
p. 378 Bohemian Village women: E. Woolf 2013.
p. 378 Goldman portraits: “She looks, if one may approach her with a comparison bordering on levity, like a woman with housecleaning perpetually on her mind,” from “Untitled,” New York World 20 Aug. 1893, 14.
p. 378 “Freedom with responsibility”: Scott 1930.
p. 378 Gladys Grant: Grant to Scott, 25 May 1941.
Publisher’s Note: Permissions Acknowledgments
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to use previously published and unpublished material:
Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, from an unpublished letter by Marjorie Seiffert.
The Estate of William Rose Benét, from the unpublished letters of William Rose Benét and Frances Benét, by permission of Judith Richardson and James Benét, executors.
The Estate of Kay Boyle, from unpublished letters of Kay Boyle, by permission of Ian von Franckenstein, executor.
The Witter Bynner Foundation, from an unpublished letter of Witter Bynner, by permission of Steve Schwartz, executive director.
Anything That Burns You Page 62