Anything That Burns You

by Terese Svoboda

  p. 293 Poet laureate of the Lincoln Battalion: Nelson 1997.

  p. 293 “We were joined by David Lawson”: Marianne Moore to John Warner Moore, 19 July 1932, in Moore 1998, 272.

  p. 294 Draft about Mooney: Ridge to Lawson, 18 July 1932.

  p. 294 Serving time: Georgakas 1998.

  p. 294 “Money-making agitation for the Communist Party”: Dilling 1934, 200.

  p. 294 1932 LA Olympics: Berke 2001, 62.

  p. 294 Rolph condoned a lynching: Gladys Hansen, “James Rolph, Jr,” The Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco, sfmuseum.org.

  p. 294 “I’m very proud of that bust”: Ridge to Floyd, 25 July 1932.

  p. 294 Ridge worried out loud: Ridge to Lawson, 18 July 1932.

  p. 294 Traveled upstate to stay near Yaddo: Ridge to Floyd, 7 Aug. 1932.

  p. 294 “Light and air and silence”: Ames to Ridge, 5 July 1932.

  p. 294 “There is no noise”: Ridge to Floyd, 7 Aug. 1932.

  p. 295 “It is bad in America now”: Frances Rose Benét to Ridge, 25 July 1932.

  p. 295 “I tremble to think of the result”: Ridge to Floyd, 10 Aug. 1932.

  p. 295 Wanted to visit a strike: Ridge to Lawson, 25 Aug. 1932.

  p. 295 “My own life as a theme”: Ridge to Lawson, 21 Aug. 1932.

  p. 295 Three sleepless nights, Gynergen: Ridge to Lawson, 30 Aug. 1932.

  p. 295 “I was so weak”: Ridge to Floyd, [Aug.] 1932.

  p. 295-296 “A whole series—a cycle”: Ridge to Joseph H. Brewer, 19 Sept. 1932.

  p. 296 “You can’t be sick all the time”: Scott to Lawson, 27 Jan. 1933.

  p. 296 72 pounds: Ridge to Lawson, 27 July 1933.

  p. 296 Admitted to Mt. Sinai: Scott to Lawson, 30 June 1933.

  p. 296 Moved to the Loeb Home: Ridge to Lawson, 27 July 1933.

  p. 296 “A little like Yaddo”: Ridge to Floyd, 9 June 1933.

  p. 296 “Big hole in the day”: Ridge to Lawson, 4 Aug. 1933.

  p. 296 Codeine was stopped: Ridge to Lawson, 5 Aug. 1933.

  p. 296 Written most of “Via Ignis”: Ridge to Floyd, 9 June 1933.

  p. 296 Fighting for her life: Ridge to Floyd, 1 Aug. 193[3].

  p. 296 “Must have my white silk slip”: Ridge to Lawson, 5 Aug. 1933.

  p. 296 Simele massacre: Stafford 2006/1935, 171.

  p. 296 DuPont and Morgan’s plot: Kangas 1996.

  p. 296 No one was prosecuted: “The Whitehouse Coup.” Document. BBC Radio 4. London. 23 July 2007. Radio.

  p. 296 Scott’s abortion: White 1998, 98.

  p. 296-297 “She always asked after you”: Scott to Ridge, July 1933.

  p. 297 Scott asked Ridge to sign a petition: Scott to Ridge, 23 Nov. 1933.

  p. 297 Goldman’s tour: Kissack 2008, 157.

  p. 297 Thousands are turned away: Falk 1996.

  p. 297 “Lyrical left” stayed away: Kissack 2008, 158.

  p. 297 “Wrong-headed old woman”: qtd. in Morton 1992, 138.

  p. 297 “Let me handle the money”: Ridge to Lawson, 20 Aug. 1933.

  p. 297 Left for the Jersey Shore: Ridge to Floyd, 4 Sept. 1933

  p. 297 14 pounds at hospital: Ridge to Floyd, 10 July 1934.

  p. 297 “Will try to work out an American theme”: Ridge to Floyd, 4 Sept. 1933.

  Chapter 32 — Shelley Awards, a Poets Guild Prize, and a Guggenheim

  p. 298 “Jiggered if I know”: Ridge to Floyd, 3 Jan. 1933.

  p. 299 “Bring you the world you don’t need on a platter”: Scott to Ridge, 4 Apr. 1934.

  p. 299 Endowed by Sears: Graham 1946, 67.

  p. 299 “Selected with reference to his or her genius and need”: “Frost and Shelley Awards,” poetrysociety.org.

  p. 299 First winner and Aiken’s attempted suicide: “Conrad Aiken: Biography,” poetryfoundation.org.

  p. 299 $1750 during the depression: Henderson 1975, 197.

  p. 299 $30,000 in 2014: davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php.

  p. 299 Splitting the award: “Shelley Winners,” poetrysociety.org.

  p. 299 “Dare”: Frost 1929, 25.

  p. 299 “Nothing could comfort her”: Edwards 1988.

  p. 299 Frost’s children’s books: Register of the Frances Frost Papers, Special Collections and Archives, UC San Diego.

  p. 299 A History of American Poetry: Heather 2014.

  p. 299-300 Lower East Side female Jew, fantasy: Sternlicht 2004, 122.

  p. 300 “Haunted by her white dress”: Zaturenska 2002, “White Dress,” 45.

  p. 300 Brewer and Warren: openlibrary.org/publishers/Brewer_&_Warren_inc.

  p. 300 Difficulties after Firehead: Firms out of Business, Harry Ransom Center and University of Reading Library, fob-file.com. See also Warren 2000, 158 fn 4.

  p. 300 Putnam married Earhart: “Amelia Earhart Weds G. P. Putnam,” New York Times, 7 Feb. 1931.

  p. 300 Scott introduced her to Smith: Scott to Ridge, [1934].

  p. 300 Friend of Hart Crane’s: Hart Crane to Grace Crane, 30 May 1919, in Crane 1965. See also Yezzi 2007.

  p. 300 Smith and Haas, who they published and merger: McDowell 1981.

  p. 300 Lenore Marshall became a patron: Ridge to Marshall, 16 Jan. 1934 and 12 Feb. 1934.

  p. 300 Helped found S.A.N.E.: “Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize,” poets.org.

  p. 300 Endowing the $25,000 prize: ibid.

  p. 300 Academy of American Poets, establishment: “faq,” poets.org/academy-american-poets.

  p. 300 Robinson’s activities in the Poetry Society: Harriet Monroe, Poetry Vol. 16, 232.

  p. 300 “Notoriously quarrelsome”: Farrar 1922.

  p. 300 Betty Kray: author’s firsthand experience.

  p. 301 Book on living poets: “Lola Ridge,” Living Authors, A Book of Biographies, ed. Dilly Tante. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1935. 341.

  p. 301 “Lofty in thought and universal in feeling”: Rubin 2010, 191.

  p. 301 “Attainment of social ends by untried means”: ibid.

  p. 301 The Christadora: Trager 2003, 434.

  p. 301 Poets Guild, organizer and original members: Rubin 2010, 240.

  p. 301 Poets House awarded Ridge: Ridge to Lawson, [29 or 30] May 1935.

  p. 301 Cullen and Deutsch listed among readers: ibid., 191.

  p. 301 “Fried eggs and apples”: Ridge to Marshall, 1 June 1934.

  p. 301 “Emotional as well as an intellectual process”: Ridge 1931.

  p. 302 Summer in Montauk and Mastic: Ridge to Lawson, 3 and 31 July 1934.

  p. 302 “If only Davy could get a job”: Ridge to Floyd, 19 July 1934.

  p. 302 “People may not understand them”: Lawson to Ridge, 22 Aug. 1934.

  p. 302 “Disappointed about your work”: Lawson to Ridge, 9 Sept. 1934.

  p. 302 By the beginning of Nov. 1934: Ridge to Smith, 1 and 2 Nov. 1934; and Ridge to Marshall, 15 Dec. 1934.

  p. 302 “I understand about the spring list”: Ridge to Smith, 23 Nov. 1934.

  p. 302 “His remarks are on the margins”: Ridge to Floyd, 19 Dec. 1934.

  p. 302 “Interested in Bill Benét’s reactions”: Ridge to Smith, 7 Dec. 1934.

  p. 302 “The spark cannot flash,” “an admirer of yours”: Smith to Ridge, 10 Dec. 1934.

  p. 302-303 MacLeish, friend of Boyle’s, triple Pulitzer, “Ars Poetica”: “Archibald MacLeish,” poets.org.

  p. 303 War propaganda and Librarian of Congress: “Archibald MacLeish” in Lehman 2006, 385.

  p. 303 “Unconscious fascist”: Gold 1933.

  p. 303 “Pretty completely negative”: MacLeish 1986, 94.

  p. 303 “Comrade Edward Remington Ridge”: MacLeish 1933, “Background with Revolutionaries,” 183.

  p. 303 “Twas long before that alack!”: Ridge to Lawson, 20 Aug. 1933.

  p. 303 Marshall called Moe: Ridge, Guggenheim application, 1935.

  p. 303 Copland and Benét: Davis 1978, 222.

  p. 303 900 applications a year: Davis 2015, 216.

  p. 303 Awarding
only 39: “List of Guggenheim fellowships awarded in 1926,” Wikipedia.

  p. 303 “Millay says her poetry is first rate”: Ridge, Guggenheim application, 1935.

  p. 303-304 Ridge and Hughes won, 1935: gf.org/fellows.

  p. 304 “Significant of something coming”: Ridge to Lawson, 7 Apr. 1936.

  p. 304 “The Passage of Theresa”: Ridge, Guggenheim application, 1935.

  Chapter 33 — Dance of Fire from New Mexico

  p. 305 “Without street names or numbers”: Ridge to Marshall, 9 Apr. 1935.

  p. 305 Lange’s photography: Patrick 2009.

  p. 305 Settled at Bent House: Ridge to Lawson, 29 Mar. 1935.

  p. 305 First territorial governor: Ridge to Lawson, 4 June 1935.

  p. 305 “Horribly inconvenient but most attractive little studio”: Ridge to Marshall, 4 Apr. 1935.

  p. 305 “Transformed itself to larger meaning”: Gregory 1935.

  p. 305 In a hurry to travel to the Southwest: Ridge to Lawson, 9 May 1935.

  p. 306 Accused Smith of letting publicity go cold: ibid.

  p. 306 “No ads, no reviews”: Ridge to Lawson, 20 May 1935.

  p. 306 “Dumb as usual”: Scott to Ridge, 12 May 1935.

  p. 306 “A world of young writers and poets”: Walton 1935, 6.

  p. 306 Wehr, trained by Sloan and Weber, sought to convey justice: Wehr and Griffin-Wehr 2004.

  p. 306 “Dynasty of fire”: Ridge 1935, flap copy.

  p.306 “We may come forth”: ibid.

  p. 306 “Unmistakable stigmata of genius”: ibid.

  p. 306 “Harrison S. has determined to ruin me”: Ridge to Lawson, 20 May 1935.

  p. 307 Fantasy: Smethurst 1999, 36; and Guide to the Fantasy Magazine Papers, YCAL MSS 55, Yale University Library.

  p. 307 “This is to bear, with cleavage and in pain”: Poetry Oct. 1935, 41; and Ridge 1935, 44.

  p. 307 “This is major poetry”: Strobel 1935.

  p. 307 “Revolutionary in a technical as well as a spiritual sense”: Untermeyer 1935.

  p. 307 “Revolutionary and metaphysical”: Ridge to Lawson, 27 Aug. 1934.

  p. 307 “Irish and intense”: P. H. 1935.

  p. 307 “More mature poetry”: Rice 1935.

  p. 308 “Unforgettably but without bitterness”: Strobel 1935.

  p. 308 “Even the former Governor”: Rice 1935.

  p. 308 Anderson’s “Winterset”: McAtee 2010.

  p. 308 “Living through another crucifixion”: Joughin and Morgan 1948, 174.

  p. 308 One hundred forty-four: ibid., 382.

  p. 308 “Longest…most significant”: ibid., 384.

  p. 309 “Justice Denied: Massachusetts”: Newcomb 1995.

  p. 309 “Deserve a permanent place”: Joughin and Morgan 1948, 392.

  p. 309 “This relative obscurity”: ibid., 389.

  p. 309 Celestine Madeiros: Aiuto 2014.

  p. 309 “Old myth/renews its tenure”: Ridge 1935, “Three Men Die,” 61.

  p. 309 “Drumbeats of the hooves”: ibid., 75.

  p. 310 “To celebrate the noblest and the bravest”: Bogan 1935.

  p. 310 “It merely makes me sick”: Ridge to Lawson, 12 July 1935.

  p. 310 “By which posterity”: Scott to Ridge, 5 July 1924.

  p. 310 “Arrests the artist’s growth by stroking him to sleep”: Ridge 1925.

  p. 310 “Not the equal of her poems”: Kreymborg 1934, 486-488.

  p. 310 66,000 copies: Milford 2001, 385.

  p. 310 “Epitaph for the Race of Man”: “Edna St. Vincent Millay: Biography,” poetryfoundation.org.

  p. 310 “Not Easily Labeled”: Rice 1935, 662.

  p. 311 Miriam Allen DeFord: For her poetry see Poetry June 1935, 138, and many other issues of that magazine. DeFord was highly critical of incomprehensibility in poetry. See her letter, “Today’s Poetry: A Symposium – III,” The Humanist 15.5 (1955): 227-228. For a discussion of DeFord’s radical beliefs: Davin 2005, 378.

  p. 311 “Authentic and fine poetry”: Floyd to Ridge, enclosure from “Miriam,” n.d.

  p. 311 “Dividing ‘anonymous’ to rhyme with ‘anon’”: This rhyme is in sonnet XVI of Ridge 1935, “I scarce can bear this tone of all but fire/With which thou threadest me, unseen, anon-/Ymous bird, and twice anonymous I” (31).

  p. 311 “Disembodied and curiously abstract”: Gregory 1935.

  p. 311 “Desire to express spiritual…ideals”: Tuchman 1986, 17-19.

  p. 311 “Impingements of words”: Hart Crane to Harriet Monroe, printed in Poetry Oct. 1926, 235.

  p. 311 “Ridge’s poetic maturity began”: Gregory and Zaturenska 1946, 445-47.

  p. 311 “Premonitory echo”: Pinsky 2011.

  p. 311 She recalled Crane’s suicide: Gregory and Zaturenska 1946.

  p. 312 Phenomenal Reading: Reed 2012, 95-96.

  p. 312 “Again the traffic lights”: Crane 1987, “To Brooklyn Bridge,” line 34.

  p. 312 “Spouting pillars spoor”: ibid., line 55.

  p. 312 “Ridge’s description…would haunt him”: Fisher 2002, 74.

  p. 312 “Certainly not borrowed”: Unterecker 1969, 119. See also Franciosi 1984 for a complete argument regarding the source of Crane’s inspiration, including a discussion of his borrowings from Reznikoff.

  p. 312 Crane borrowed from Greenberg: “Greenberg and Hart Crane,” logopoeia.com/greenberg/crane.html.

  p. 312 “Like most men” Ridge, “A Modern Mystic,” 1934.

  p. 312 “When all people are shaken”: Stevens 1997, “A Fading of the Sun,” 112.

  p. 313 “A body in rags”: ibid., “Mozart, 1935,” 107.

  p. 313 “Labor Day, May Day”: Nelson 2003, 51.

  p. 313 Mooney one of the most known in Europe: Simikin 2014, “Tom Mooney.”

  p. 313 “Zola never came”: Frost 1968, flap copy.

  p. 313 Ridge fulfilled that role: Berke 2001, 61.

  p. 313 Best circulated New Zealander poem: Derby 2009.

  p. 313 Local politics: Ridge to Lawson, 30 Apr. 1935.

  p. 313 Wounded, gassed, an officer killed: Coleman 1935, 9.

  p. 313 Ten men arrested: ibid., 11.

  p. 313 Daniel Levinson: ibid., 10.

  p. 314 “A sign from heaven”: Connolly 2008.

  p. 314 Used to establish his dictatorship: “75 Years Ago, Reichstag Fire Sped Hitler’s Power Grab,” dw.de/p/DDSs.

  p. 314 “General Wood’s son and his hired thugs…”: Ridge to Marshall, 12 May 1935.

  p. 314 Writes for money to support the cause: Ridge to Floyd, 9 Aug. 1935.

  p. 314 “This is the revolution”: Ridge to Marshall, 12 May 1935.

  p. 314 Levinson and Minor met with a wife of the accused: Marcantonio 1956, speech before the 74th Congress, 4 May 1935. See also Coleman 1935, 2.

  p. 314 Minor trained at the Ferrer: Antliff 2007, 27.

  p. 314 “Dragged out and thrown on the ground”: Marcantonio 1956.

  p. 314 Twelve hours through the desert: Coleman 1935, 2.

  p. 314-315 “Signs of a world-wide pogrom”: Ridge to Lawson, 30 Apr. 1935.

  p. 315 “Chances of my…getting down in the mine”: Ridge to Floyd, 19 Aug. 1935.

  Chapter 34 — Poetry in the Southwest

  p. 316 Mabel Dodge: Luhan 1936, 265.

  p. 316 Married Tony Luhan: Simkin 2013, “Mabel Dodge.”

  p. 316 Waves of artists came: Rudnick 1987, 345.

  p. 316 Including Ridge’s friends: For a complete list of visitors to the Mabel Dodge Luhan house, see Rudnick 1998.

  p. 316 Leopold Stokowski: Rudnick 1998, 142.

  p. 316 Ridge met Dodge’s son: Scott to Ridge, 10 Mar. 1935; and Ridge to Marshall, 4 Apr. 1935.

  p. 316 Claire married to Ridge’s current publisher: Karman 2009.

  p. 316 Alice Oliver Henderson Evans: Ridge to Lawson, 18 July 1935; and Rudnick 1998, 22, 300.

  p. 316 “Devoted wife of John Evans”: Ridge to Lawson, 17 July 1935.

  p. 316 Hosted Toomer: ibid.


  p. 316 Toomer and Mabel’s affair: Rudnick 1987, 228-229.

  p. 316 “A House in Taos”: ibid., 352 fn 12.

  p. 316 $14,000 in 1926: ibid., 107.

  p. 316 “Female fascism”: qtd. in ibid., 108.

  p. 317 Portrait of Ridge: Marjorie Content, “Lola Ridge,” National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

  p. 317 “To be their lords and masters”: qtd. in Curwood 2010, 78.

  p. 317 Slugged her: Rampersand 1987.

  p. 317 “The Great Flood of 1935”: Johnson 2012.

  p. 317 “All night in a chair by the fire”: Ridge to Lawson, [2] Aug. 1935.

  p. 317 “As if her body were absent-minded”: Toomer, “A Drama of the Southwest.”

  p. 317 Ridge and Johnson’s quarrel: Ridge to Lawson, 30 Apr. 1935.

  p. 317 “Talons for talent”: qtd. in Rudnick 1987, 356 fn 21.

  p. 317 “Imagined dead”: Rudnick 1987, 302.

  p. 317 Lawrence imagined her dead: ibid., 191.

  p. 317 Cementing his ashes: ibid.

  p. 318 “Suspicion and jealousy”: Ridge to Lawson, 8 May 1935.

  p. 318 Beck Strand’s arrival: Rudnick 1987, 355.

  p. 318 Daughter of Buffalo Bill’s manager: Reilly 2007, 297.

  p. 318 “I cannot have her morning noon and night”: Ridge to Lawson, 16 Apr. 1935.

  p. 318 “Stopped trying to dominate me”: Ridge to Lawson, 26 May 1935.

  p. 318 Alice Hunt Bartlett: Stringer 1996, 536.

  p. 318 Solicited Cather: Bartlett 1925.

  p. 318 Solicited Hillyer: Bohlke 178.

  p. 319 Solicited Jeffers: Bartlett 1934.

  p. 319 “All life is the domain of poetry”: Ridge to Bartlett, 28 May 1935.

  p. 319 “Beastly room”: Ridge to Lawson, 17 June 1935.

  p. 319 Alfredo helped her: Ridge to Lawson, 14 June 1935.

  p. 319 Historic and fashionable La Fonda: “History of La Fonda,” lafondasantafe.com.

  p. 319 Alfredo’s further assistance: Ridge to Lawson, 17 and 25 June 1935.

  p. 319 Son of a governor: Ridge to Content, 11 Oct. 1936.

  p. 319 “One of the loveliest spirits”: Ridge to Lawson, 25 June 1935.

  p. 319 “Alfau” and “Alfon”: Ridge to Lawson, 31 Mar. and 5 Apr. 1935.

  p. 319 Working on a novel: Ridge to Lawson, 25 June 1935.

  p. 319 “Nothing to do with the emotional attractions”: n.d. in the Lenore Marshall Papers. Columbia University Archives.