Alfred Kreymborg
He was born in New York City to Hermann and Louisa Kreymborg (née Nasher), who ran a small cigar store,[1] and he spent most of his life there and in New Jersey.
[2] He was the first literary figure to be included in Alfred Stieglitz's 291 circle,[3] and was briefly associated with the Ferrer Center where Man Ray was studying under Robert Henri.
Ezra Pound – who had heard about The Glebe from Kreymborg's friend John Cournos[5] – sent Kreymborg the manuscript of Des Imagistes in the summer of 1913[6] and this famous first anthology of Imagism was published as the fifth issue of The Glebe[7] In 1913 Man Ray and Samuel Halpert, another of Henri's students, started an artist's colony in Ridgefield, New Jersey.
[12] John S. Sumner of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice raised a stir; there was a court case which led to Bruno's imprisonment.
[Note 1] Kreymborg spent a year touring the United States, mostly visiting universities, reading his poetry — including at The Sunwise Turn in New York, an early supporter of his work — while accompanying himself on a mandolute.
Kreymborg continued to edit Others somewhat erratically until 1919;[13] he then in June 1921 sailed to Europe[7] to act as co-editor of Broom, An International Magazine of the Arts (along with Harold Loeb).
[15] An ironic anecdote on the status of modernism: Kreymborg arranged for an aspiring artist Fernand Léger to create the artwork for the cover of volume 2, number 4 of Broom.
[19] (His play "The Silent Waiter," loosely based on his first marriage, was performed by NYC's Metropolitan Playhouse in a virtual livestreamed production on March 13, 2021, with commentary.)
In 1938 Kreymborg's verse drama for radio The Planets: A Modern Allegory was broadcast by NBC and received such an enthusiastic response from the public that it was repeated a few weeks later.
He also wrote puppet plays (his most famous being Manikin Minikin and Lima Beans), which he performed with his wife, Dot, while touring the United States.
[citation needed] Due to his knack of "discovering" and publishing some of the most important poets during his time, Kreymborg later became president of the Poetry Society of America.
