Poet, editor, and dramatist, born in New York City, New York, USA. He had little schooling, was a chess prodigy, travelled often, and became a journalist and editor based in New York City. He is known as an initiator of the little literary magazine and, among other ventures, he founded The Glebe (191314), a publication showcasing the Imagists, and Others (191519), an experimental periodical. He was also interested in puppets, and with his wife, Remo Buffano, started a puppet theatre. In the 1930s he directed poetic dramas for the Federal Theater Project.
Alfred Francis Kreymborg (1883–1966) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, literary editor and anthologist.
Early life and associations
He was born in New York City, and he spent most of his life there and in New Jersey. From 1913 to 1914, Kreymborg and Man Ray worked together to bring out ten issues of the first of Kreymborg's prominent modernist magazines: The Glebe. Ezra Pound — who had heard about The Glebe from Kreymborg's friend John Cournos — sent Kreymborg the manuscript of Des Imagistes in the summer of 1913 and this famous first anthology of Imagism was published as the fifth issue of The Glebe
In 1913 Man Ray and Samuel Halpert, another of Henri's students, started an artist's colony in Ridgefield, New Jersey. Kreymborg moved to Ridgefield and launched Others: A Magazine of the New Verse with Skipwith Cannell, and Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams in 1915.
Kreymborg was life-long friends with Carl Sandburg, each indepentently choosing to write in free verse. Kreymborg's tone-poems, or 'mushrooms', had seldom made it into print, but in 1916, soon after his move to Ridgefield they were brought out in book form by John Marshall as 'Mushrooms: A Book of Free Forms' and Williams praised them as a "triumph for America".
Kreymborg spent a year touring the United States, mostly visiting universities, reading his poetry while accompanying himself on a mandolin.
1920s
Kreymborg continued to edit Others somewhat erratically until 1919;
Kreymborg's poems appeared in The Dial in 1923.
In the summer of 1925, Kreymborg was staying in Lake George Village, and happened to meet Paul Rosenfeld who was staying with Stieglitz. In one late night discussion Kreymborg and Rosenfeld lamented the disappearance of various literary magazines, including Broom. Another neighbour, Samuel Ornitz appeared and offered financial backing for an annual book of new writing. The Second American Caravan, was edited by Kreymborg, Mumford, and Rosenfeld;
1930's and later
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.
Kreymborg maintained a long-term connection with Alfred Stieglitz primarily because of Kreymborg's relationship with Hugo Knudsen, who invented some of the early photo-printing processes that Stieglitz utilized.
Kreymborg played chess at a professional standard, on two occasions he played and lost to Jose Capablanca He drew one game with the U.S. Champion Frank Marshall in the 1911 Masters Tournament, but shortly afterward left the chess world after a stunning defeat by Oscar Chajes, returning to the sport roughly twenty-three years later.
Due to his knack of "discovering" and publishing some of the most important poets during his time, Kreymborg later became president of the American Society of Composers, Artists, and Performers.
Critical views
Kreymborg later became a relatively conservative poet, but — according to Julian Symons — "never an interesting one"
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