Poet-Critics and the Administration of Culture

In this illuminating study of the intersection between artists and institutions, Kindley, a visiting assistant professor of literature at Claremont McKenna College, documents how modernist poets in the first half of the 20th century secured support for their work. Following a first chapter charting the rise of the poet-critic (poets who established themselves as the best-qualified critics of their craft), largely at T.S. Eliot’s instigation, Kindley then investigates the survival strategies used by these writers following the stock market crash of 1929 and consequent decline of private patronage. These included submitting to the “little” literary magazines (notably the Dial, under Marianne Moore’s editorship), collaboration with academia (W.H. Auden and his connection to Oxford is the primary example given), support by institutions such as the Library of Congress (under the administration of poet Archibald MacLeish) and the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), and finally, adoption by private organizations (notably the Rockefeller Foundation). All proved paradoxical to poets hoping to preserve their artistic autonomy. Kindley illustrates his story with abundant examples, involving both well- and lesser-known figures. His book is an insightful look at a period in American culture when modernists went from being “bohemians, charged with clarifying byzantine avant-garde practices,” to “civil servants, charged with reinforcing the ideals and institutions of American democracy.” (Sept.)