Maxwell Bodenheim
Encyclopedia
Maxwell Bodenheim was an American
poet
and novelist who was known as the King of Greenwich Village
Bohemian
s. His writing brought him international fame during the Jazz Age
of the 1920s.
, Mississippi
, the son of Solomon Bodenheimer (born July 1858) and Carrie (born April 1860). His father was born in Germany
and his mother in Alsace-Lorraine
. Carrie emigrate
d to the United States
in 1881 and Solomon in 1888. In 1900, the family moved from Mississippi to Chicago. The Federal
Census
gave their residence as 431 46th Street.
Bodenheim and Ben Hecht
met in Chicago and became literary
friends about 1912, a time when Bodenheim was nicknamed Bogie. (His later years in the Village he was called Bodie.) Together they founded The Chicago Literary Times. (1923–1924) The Chicago literary group also included Carl Sandburg, Theodore Dreiser
, Edgar Lee Masters
, Witter Bynner
, Arthur Davison Ficke, Floyd Dell, Vachel Lindsay
and Sherwood Anderson
.
Bodenheim began publishing his earliest verse
in Poetry Magazine in 1914
. A poem by Bodenheim featured in the 1917 Others: An Anthology of the New Verse, which also included poems by such future luminaries as T. S. Eliot
, Marianne Moore
, Carl Sandburg
, and William Carlos Williams
, and Wallace Stevens
' "Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird". Over the next ten years, he established himself as a leading American author, publishing ten books of verse, which incorporate many techniques of the imagists
, and 13 novels. His poetry books include Minna and Myself (1918
), Advice (1920
), Against This Age (1923
), The King of Spain (1928
), Bringing Jazz! (1930
) and Selected Poems 1914–1944 (1946
).
Bodenheim's novels include Blackguard (1923
), Replenishing Jessica (1925
), Ninth Avenue (1926
), Georgia May (1927
), Naked on Roller Skates (1930
) and A Virtuous Girl (1930
).
Bodenheim had three wives, Minna Schein (married 1918-divorced 1938), Grace Finan (married 1939-her death 1950), and Ruth Fagin (married 1952-their deaths 1954). He and Minna had one son who was born in 1920.
For many years a leading figure of the Bohemian scene in New York
's Greenwich Village, Bodenheim deteriorated rapidly after his success in the 1920s and 1930s. Before he married his second wife, Grace, he had become a panhandler
. They spent part of their marriage in the Catskills
. After she died of cancer, he was arrested and hospitalized several times for vagrancy and drunkenness.
Bodenheim's memoir, My Life and Loves in Greenwich Village, released six months after Bodenheim's death in 1954, was ghostwritten by Samuel Roth, who had been cheaply paying a down-and-out Bodenheim for his biographical stories about Greenwhich Village at the time of his murder. Hecht based his 1958 play Winkelberg on the life of the Bohemian poet.
A biography titled Maxwell Bodenheim by Jack B. Moore was published in 1970
. A doctoral disstertaton, "The Necessity of Rebellion: The Novels of Maxwell Bodenheim," was produced by Arthur B. Sacks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1975.
His third wife, Ruth, was 28 years his junior. She lived with him in his derelict lifestyle. They were homeless and slept on park benches. He sometimes carried a sign that read, "I Am Blind," to panhandle, even though he was not blind, and he would jot down short poems for money or drinks. Ruth slept with other men and Bodenheim seemed not to mind.
Bodenheim and Ruth were murdered by a 25-year-old sociopathic dishwasher, Harold "Charlie" Weinberg, whom they befriended on the streets of the Village. He offered to let them spend the night in his room a few blocks from the Bowery. He was sexually attracted to Ruth, and the two of them became active on the floor near the cot where the 62-year-old drunken Bodenheim was supposedly sleeping. Bodenheim got up, challenged Weinberg and they began fighting. Weinberg shot Bodenheim twice in the chest. Ruth was beaten and stabbed four times in the back. Weinberg, taking advantage of the climate of McCarthyite repression
, confessed to the double homicide, affirming that "I ought to get a medal. I killed two Communists." He was judged insane and sent to a mental institution. Some believed Weinberg was moderately retarded.
Hecht said he would pay for the funeral. Bodenheim's ex-wife, Minna, made arrangements to have him buried in her family plot in Cedar Park Cemetery
, Emerson, New Jersey
.
The year before their murder, the Bodenheims spent some time (perhaps two months) as guests of the Catholic Worker
of Dorothy Day
in New York. Day, who had been a friend of Maxwell Bodenheim in Greenwich Village in the 1920s, devotes a chapter to the Bodenheims in her Loaves and Fishes (1963).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and novelist who was known as the King of Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
Bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
s. His writing brought him international fame during the Jazz Age
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
of the 1920s.
Biography
He was born Maxwell Bodenheimer in HermanvilleHermanville, Mississippi
Hermanville is an unincorporated town in Claiborne County, Mississippi, United States.-Education:Hermanville is served by the Claiborne County School District....
, Mississippi
Mississippi
Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
, the son of Solomon Bodenheimer (born July 1858) and Carrie (born April 1860). His father was born in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and his mother in Alsace-Lorraine
Alsace-Lorraine
The Imperial Territory of Alsace-Lorraine was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east...
. Carrie emigrate
Emigrate
Emigrate is a heavy metal band based in New York, led by Richard Z. Kruspe, the lead guitarist of the German band Rammstein.-History:Kruspe started the band in 2005, when Rammstein decided to take a year off from touring and recording...
d to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1881 and Solomon in 1888. In 1900, the family moved from Mississippi to Chicago. The Federal
Federal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
Census
Census
A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population. The term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common...
gave their residence as 431 46th Street.
Bodenheim and Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
met in Chicago and became literary
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
friends about 1912, a time when Bodenheim was nicknamed Bogie. (His later years in the Village he was called Bodie.) Together they founded The Chicago Literary Times. (1923–1924) The Chicago literary group also included Carl Sandburg, Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of...
, Edgar Lee Masters
Edgar Lee Masters
Edgar Lee Masters was an American poet, biographer, and dramatist...
, Witter Bynner
Witter Bynner
Harold Witter Bynner was an American poet, writer and scholar, known for his long residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at what is now the Inn of the Turquoise Bear.-Early life:...
, Arthur Davison Ficke, Floyd Dell, Vachel Lindsay
Vachel Lindsay
Nicholas Vachel Lindsay was an American poet. He is considered the father of modern singing poetry, as he referred to it, in which verses are meant to be sung or chanted...
and Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson
Sherwood Anderson was an American novelist and short story writer. His most enduring work is the short story sequence Winesburg, Ohio. Writers he has influenced include Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, J. D. Salinger, and Amos Oz.-Early life:Anderson was born in Clyde, Ohio,...
.
Bodenheim began publishing his earliest verse
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
in Poetry Magazine in 1914
1914 in literature
The year 1914 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The literature of World War I makes its first appearance.*November 7 - The first issue of The New Republic magazine is published....
. A poem by Bodenheim featured in the 1917 Others: An Anthology of the New Verse, which also included poems by such future luminaries as T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
, Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore was an American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.- Life :Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of mechanical engineer and inventor...
, Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
, and William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
, and Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...
' "Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird". Over the next ten years, he established himself as a leading American author, publishing ten books of verse, which incorporate many techniques of the imagists
Imagism
Imagism was a movement in early 20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. The Imagists rejected the sentiment and discursiveness typical of much Romantic and Victorian poetry. This was in contrast to their contemporaries, the Georgian poets,...
, and 13 novels. His poetry books include Minna and Myself (1918
1918 in literature
The year 1918 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The 2nd annual Pulitzer Prizes are awarded.* Author Hall Caine made a KBE.*Robert Graves marries Nancy Nicholson...
), Advice (1920
1920 in literature
The year 1920 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Agatha Christie publishes her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, introducing the long-running character detective, Hercule Poirot....
), Against This Age (1923
1923 in literature
The year 1923 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Fictional detective Lord Peter Wimsey makes his first appearance in print....
), The King of Spain (1928
1928 in literature
The year 1928 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Ford Madox Ford publishes Last Post. It is the final book of a four-volume work titled Parade's End published between 1924 and 1928....
), Bringing Jazz! (1930
1930 in literature
The year 1930 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 6 - The first literary character licensing agreement is signed by A. A. Milne, granting Stephen Slesinger U.S...
) and Selected Poems 1914–1944 (1946
1946 in literature
The year 1946 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*November 7 - Walker Percy marries Mary Bernice Townsend.*Launch in the United Kingdom of Penguin Classics under the editorship of E. V...
).
Bodenheim's novels include Blackguard (1923
1923 in literature
The year 1923 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Fictional detective Lord Peter Wimsey makes his first appearance in print....
), Replenishing Jessica (1925
1925 in literature
The year 1925 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* April: F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway meet in the Dingo Bar on rue Delambre, in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, France shortly after the publication of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and shortly before...
), Ninth Avenue (1926
1926 in literature
The year 1926 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is founded in Middlebury, Vermont....
), Georgia May (1927
1927 in literature
The year 1927 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Random House, book publishers, is founded in New York City by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer.-New books:*James Boyd - Marching On...
), Naked on Roller Skates (1930
1930 in literature
The year 1930 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 6 - The first literary character licensing agreement is signed by A. A. Milne, granting Stephen Slesinger U.S...
) and A Virtuous Girl (1930
1930 in literature
The year 1930 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*January 6 - The first literary character licensing agreement is signed by A. A. Milne, granting Stephen Slesinger U.S...
).
Bodenheim had three wives, Minna Schein (married 1918-divorced 1938), Grace Finan (married 1939-her death 1950), and Ruth Fagin (married 1952-their deaths 1954). He and Minna had one son who was born in 1920.
For many years a leading figure of the Bohemian scene in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
's Greenwich Village, Bodenheim deteriorated rapidly after his success in the 1920s and 1930s. Before he married his second wife, Grace, he had become a panhandler
Begging
Begging is to entreat earnestly, implore, or supplicate. It often occurs for the purpose of securing a material benefit, generally for a gift, donation or charitable donation...
. They spent part of their marriage in the Catskills
Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, an area in New York State northwest of New York City and southwest of Albany, are a mature dissected plateau, an uplifted region that was subsequently eroded into sharp relief. They are an eastward continuation, and the highest representation, of the Allegheny Plateau...
. After she died of cancer, he was arrested and hospitalized several times for vagrancy and drunkenness.
Bodenheim's memoir, My Life and Loves in Greenwich Village, released six months after Bodenheim's death in 1954, was ghostwritten by Samuel Roth, who had been cheaply paying a down-and-out Bodenheim for his biographical stories about Greenwhich Village at the time of his murder. Hecht based his 1958 play Winkelberg on the life of the Bohemian poet.
A biography titled Maxwell Bodenheim by Jack B. Moore was published in 1970
1970 in literature
The year 1970 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Deliverance by American poet James Dickey published...
. A doctoral disstertaton, "The Necessity of Rebellion: The Novels of Maxwell Bodenheim," was produced by Arthur B. Sacks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1975.
His third wife, Ruth, was 28 years his junior. She lived with him in his derelict lifestyle. They were homeless and slept on park benches. He sometimes carried a sign that read, "I Am Blind," to panhandle, even though he was not blind, and he would jot down short poems for money or drinks. Ruth slept with other men and Bodenheim seemed not to mind.
Bodenheim and Ruth were murdered by a 25-year-old sociopathic dishwasher, Harold "Charlie" Weinberg, whom they befriended on the streets of the Village. He offered to let them spend the night in his room a few blocks from the Bowery. He was sexually attracted to Ruth, and the two of them became active on the floor near the cot where the 62-year-old drunken Bodenheim was supposedly sleeping. Bodenheim got up, challenged Weinberg and they began fighting. Weinberg shot Bodenheim twice in the chest. Ruth was beaten and stabbed four times in the back. Weinberg, taking advantage of the climate of McCarthyite repression
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
, confessed to the double homicide, affirming that "I ought to get a medal. I killed two Communists." He was judged insane and sent to a mental institution. Some believed Weinberg was moderately retarded.
Hecht said he would pay for the funeral. Bodenheim's ex-wife, Minna, made arrangements to have him buried in her family plot in Cedar Park Cemetery
Cedar Park Cemetery, Emerson, New Jersey
Cedar Park Cemetery is a cemetery located in Emerson, in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States.- Noted interments :*Martin Balsam won an Academy Award in 1965 for best supporting actor in A Thousand Clowns...
, Emerson, New Jersey
Emerson, New Jersey
Emerson is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States, a suburb in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 7,401....
.
The year before their murder, the Bodenheims spent some time (perhaps two months) as guests of the Catholic Worker
Catholic Worker
The Catholic Worker is a newspaper published seven times a year by the Catholic Worker Movement community in New York City. The newspaper was started by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin to make people aware of church teaching on social justice...
of Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day
Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an anarchist, and did not hesitate to use the term...
in New York. Day, who had been a friend of Maxwell Bodenheim in Greenwich Village in the 1920s, devotes a chapter to the Bodenheims in her Loaves and Fishes (1963).
-
-
-
-
-
- Death
- by Maxwell Bodenheim
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- I shall walk down the road.
- I shall turn and feel upon my feet
- The kisses of Death, like scented rain.
- For Death is a black slave with little silver birds
- Perched in a sleeping wreath upon his head.
- He will tell me, his voice like jewels
- Dropped into a satin bag,
- How he has tip-toed after me down the road,
- His heart made a dark whirlpool with longing for me.
- Then he will graze me with his hands
- And I will be one of the sleeping silver birds
- Between the cold waves of his hair, as he tip-toes on.
-
-
-
Selected works
- Minna and Myself, poetry, 1918
- Advice, poetry, 1920
- Introducing Irony, poetry, 1922
- Against This Age, poetry, 1923
- Blackguard, novel, 1923
- The Sardonic Arm, poetry, 1923
- Crazy Man, novel, 1924
- Replenishing Jessica, novel, 1925
- Ninth Avenue, novel, 1926
- Returning to Emotion, poetry, 1927
- Georgie May, novel, 1928
- The King of Spain, poetry, 1928
- Sixty Seconds, novel, 1929
- Bringing Jazz!, poetry, 1930
- Naked on Roller Skates, novel, 1930
- A Virtuous Girl, novel, 1930
- Duke Herring, novel, 1931
- Run, Sheep, Run, novel, 1932
- New York Madness, novel, 1933
- Slow Vision, novel, 1933
- Lights in the Valley, poetry, 1942
- Selected Poems, poetry, 1946
- My Life and Loves in Greenwich Village, 1954
- Cutie A Warm Mamma (Ben Hecht and Maxwell Bodenheim)
External links
- Poems by Maxwell Bodenheim Extensive collection of Bodenheim's poetry
- Factory Girl by Bodenheim at Oldpoetry.com
- Photo
- memoir of Max Bodenheim by Dorothy Day