White Buildings

First edition
(publ. Boni and Liveright)

White Buildings was the first collection (1926) of poetry by Hart Crane, an American modernist poet, critical to both lyrical and language poetic traditions.

The book features well-known pieces like "For the Marriage of Faustus and Helen," the "Voyages" series, and some of his most famous lyrics including "My Grandmother's Love Letters" and "Chaplinesque." Harold Bloom has argued that this collection alone, if perhaps taken with his later lyric, 'The Broken Tower,' could have secured Crane's reputation as one of the best American poets of the 20th century.[1]

  1. ^ See Bloom's 'Introduction' to The Complete Poems of Hart Crane (2000) ed. Mark Simon