Writers Slept Here
And Then Poured Words Onto The Page
Walking the streets and looking at the places where ten famous writers lived in Manhattan, New York City.
Two came here from Ohio. One each from Maine, New Jersey, Minnesota, Virginia, Mississippi, Missouri, and Massachusetts.
Only one was born here, in Harlem.
[Three died here. Two died in France. One in Italy.
One each in Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York State (Austerlitz), and the Gulf of Mexico.]
“My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light!” ― Edna St. Vincent Millay
“Out of some subway scuttle, cell or loft
A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets,
Tilting there momently, shrill shirt ballooning,
A jest falls from the speechless caravan.”
— “Brooklyn Bridge” — Hart Crane
“It is very nearly impossible… to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.” — James Baldwin
”They’ve realized that this country has gone so flabby that any gang daring enough and unscrupulous enough, and smart enough not to seem illegal, can grab hold of the entire government and have all the power and applause.”
— Sinclair Lewis
“I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do. I feel as if this tree knows everything I ever think of when I sit here. When I come back to it, I never have to remind it of anything; I begin just where I left off.” ― Willa Cather
“They hate because they fear, and they fear because they feel that the deepest feelings of their lives are being assaulted and outraged. And they do not know why; they are powerless pawns in a blind play of social forces.”
― Richard Wright
“Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” — Allen Ginsberg
“Fear suddenly gave way to impatience at the stupidity of crowds who reacted only to accidents, freaks, movie stars, kings.” ― Dawn Powell
“Man is the Reasoning Animal. Such is the claim. I think it is open to dispute. Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal… In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.
Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh — not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.” ― Mark Twain
“i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the,shocking fuzz
of your electric furr,and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh….And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new”
― e.e. cummings
Footnote
The Algonquin Hotel’s literary significance stems from its location for the Algonquin Round Table — a group of New York City writers, critics, actors, and wits.
They dubbed themselves “The Vicious Circle”, and met for lunch daily from 1919 until 1929. They engaged in wisecracks, wordplay, and witticisms that were disseminated via newspaper columns of certain members. Creative collaboration flourished.
A number of the Round Table members—some charter, some passing through—including Dorothy Parker, Harold Ross, Robert Benchley, Noël Coward, Harpo Marx—acquired national reputations, both for their contributions to literature and for their wit.
“I hate writing, I love having written.”- Dorothy Parker
“The free-lance writer is one who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.”
― Robert Benchley
“Having to read footnotes resembles having to go downstairs to answer the door while in the midst of making love.” ― Noel Coward
Addendum
“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain
“Reading was like a drug, a dope. The novels created moods in which I lived for days.” ― Richard Wright
“One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.” ― Hart Crane
“Concentrate on what you want to say to yourself and your friends. Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness. You say what you want to say when you don’t care who’s listening.” ― Allen Ginsberg
“To be nobody but
yourself in a world
which is doing its best day and night to make you like
everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”
― e.e. cummings
The Future
It is standard procedure for plaques to be put up after the writer/artist leaves the planet. So I’d say in give or take ten more years you will be able to visit mine.
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© AleXander Hirka 2022. All Rights Reserved.
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