Wilbur Underwood was an American

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...

 of the late 19th and early twentieth century. His work, especially the 1906 volume, A Book of Masks, had deep affiliations with the decadent movement

Decadent movement

The Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...

 in literature. Today he is best known as a friend and confidante of Hart Crane

Hart Crane

-Career:Throughout the early 1920s, small but well-respected literary magazines published some of Crane’s lyrics, gaining him, among the avant-garde, a respect that White Buildings , his first volume, ratified and strengthened...

, whom he befriended in Washington, D.C. in 1920. Crane's intimate letters to Underwood, often censored, have been occasionally anthologized. His poem, The Cattle of His Hand, was anthologized in Edmund Clarence Stedman

Edmund Clarence Stedman

Edmund Clarence Stedman , American poet, critic, and essayist was born at Hartford, Connecticut, United States.-Biography:...

's 1900 verse collection, An American Anthology. Underwood, until 1933, worked in a clerical-administrative position in the State Department. His selected poems were published in 1949.

External links

• The Cattle of His Hand at Bartleby.com