Trigger warning: this article contains references to suicide, depression, drug use, psychiatric holds and alcoholism.
Pardon the alliteration. Let’s get into the dazzling, star-studded lives of the literati. Gilded soirees and Venetian parties aren’t the typical things that come to mind when thinking of the stereotypical depressed, performative poet. However, that stereotype has never been wholly true from 600 BCE to contemporary lyrics — they’re not all poète maudits. To dispel this myth, here are several stories sure to show the surprising nature of the lives of great poets.
Stanza 1: Was it a suicide or did he escape to Mexico for the simple life? Some label his death as a disappearance. Weldon Kees grew up in a dusty, bucolic town to eventually move onto the big life—throwing elaborate, drunken parties in his suave San Franciscan loft where the chainsmoking murk of dissatisfaction infused itself within the sultry oranges of his walls. Throughout his many drunken disarrays, he allegedly spoke to his friends of going to Mexico or, implicitly, killing himself. His writing is littered with hints as to his latent life: “The mirror from Mexico, stuck to the wall, / Reflects nothing at all.” On July 18, 1955, Kees’s car was found near the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge. His house retained all its belongings including Kees’s cat. Divers searched under the bridge unrelentingly and could not find his body. His legendary spectre remains as many often claim to see him on their trips to Mexico, only to disappear after the chase.
Stanza 2: Another suicidal poet, Anne Sexton, killed herself through carbon monoxide asphyxiation in her car. It wasn’t unexpected, unfortunately; she spent a decent part of her life in psychiatric holds. She partied in a more reserved manner than Kees with the theatrical force of her readings coupled with martini socials. “The Addict” likely speaks to her experience with alcohol and drugs, mixing cocktails and pills.
Stanza 3: Li Bai is old — 1324 years old to be exact and he still parties more than you—he was the embodiment of Live Fast, Die Old. He drank with an eclectic bunch of the intelligentsia, courtiers, etc. During these rampages of inoculation, he often articulated the soul: ”I pour myself a drink, no loved one near. / Then raising my cup, I invite the bright moon.” He was so infamous, in fact, that he was a member of the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup, a group of Tang dynasty scholars infamous for their alcoholism. Legend has it that he died inoculated falling off the boat while trying to embrace the moonlight.
Stanza 4: Sophisticated Sappho served scholarly soirees serendipitously. She was relatively less wild as she created a cultural salon space with lyre music, art and intellectual dialogue. These salons may have been home to ancient ritualistic processions wearing garland. It wasn’t historically characterized as a maudlin women-only craze like that of Bacchanalia, but a cultivated, put-together gathering. Her poems were often romantic and involved women, as did her later death myth: diving off the Leucadian Cliff in a fit of despair from her love abandoning her.
Stanza 5: Incest and exile. Speaking of Ancient Greek poets, Lord Byron took inspiration from many of them, including Homer. This vampiric visitor partied in Geneva, Ravenna and the western Greek coast before all the performative old money aesthetic men claimed to. Scandal —marital separation, rumors of sodomy and incest and astronomical debts — led to his English exile. Those rumors may have been just that, but they were damning in English regency society. His explorer lifestyle often led to Venetian parties and late-night extravaganzas. He eventually joined the Greek fight for independence with his wealthy fortune supporting troops and their supplies. While Li Bai was the incarnation of Live Fast, Die Old, Byron was that of the original saying, dying at 36 from fever, worsened allegedly by bloodletting.
Stanza 6: Frank O’Hara frankly died being run over by a taxi on Fire Island, New York following a party. He was the very vein of the New York School of Poets and directive towards the literary enclave. He was arguably one of the greatest literary savants of his time (P.S. My favorite poem of his was “Augustus”) and his death was a sudden loss. How tragically poetic for an urban, mercurial writer?
How do you even come up with this? Incredibly written article.