Crane, [Harold] Hart

   (1899–1932)

   American poet. HPL (through his friend Samuel Loveman) met Crane in Cleveland in August 1922 and saw him again in New York in 1924–26, when he was working on The Bridge (1930). HPL parodied Crane’s “Pastorale” ( Dial,October 1921) in “Plaster-All” (1922?; LSNo. 27 [Fall 1992]: 30–31), in which Crane is apparently the first-person narrator of the poem. Crane speaks of HPL in his letters, referring to him as “piping-voiced” and “that queer Lovecraft person.” HPL saw Crane one last time in late 1930, as the ravages of alcoholism were taking effect. HPL admired Crane’s poetry, despite its modernism: he referred to The Bridgeas “a thing of astonishing merit” ( SL3.152).

   See Thomas Horton, Hart Crane: The Life of an American Poet (1937); Susan Jenkins Brown, Robber Rocks: Letters and Memories of Hart Crane, 1923–1932 (1969); John Unterecker, Voyager: A Life of Hart Crane (1969); Thomas S.W.Lewis, ed., Letters of Hart Crane and His Family (1974); Paul Mariani, The Broken Tower: A Life of Hart Crane (1999); Steven J.Mariconda, “H.P.Lovecraft: Reluctant American Modernist,” LSNo. 42 (Summer 2001): 22–34.