DEAD RECKONING: A Book of Poetry.

by Kenneth Fearing

From the dust "With the publication of his third volume of poems, Kenneth Fearing firmly establishes his position in the vanguard of insurgent American poets. His verse is as modern and as daring as sky-writing. In swift, bold strokes he reveals the promise of a world to be against the background of the world as it is. The plight of the individual on the verge of catastrophe and his hope of life in a sane society are Fearing's major concerns. His poems are intended for readers who wish to feel and think with dignity and purpose."

56 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Kenneth Fearing (July 28, 1902 – June 26, 1961) was an American poet, novelist, and founding editor of Partisan Review. Literary critic Macha Rosenthal called him "the chief poet of the American Depression."

Fearing was born in Oak Park, Illinois, the son of Harry Lester Fearing, a successful Chicago attorney, and Olive Flexner Fearing. His parents divorced when he was a year old, and he was raised mainly by his aunt, Eva Fearing Scholl. He went to school at Oak Park and River Forest High School, and was editor of the student paper, as was his predecessor Ernest Hemingway. After studying at the University of Illinois in Urbana and the University of Wisconsin, Fearing moved to New York City where he began a career as a poet and was active in leftist politics.

In the 1920s and 1930s, he published regularly in The New Yorker and helped found Partisan Review, while also working as an editor, journalist, and speechwriter and turning out a good deal of pulp fiction. Some of Fearing's pulp fiction was soft-core pornography, often published under the pseudonym Kirk Wolff.

In 1950, he was subpoenaed by the U.S. Attorney in Washington, D.C.; when asked if he was a member of the Communist Party, he is supposed to have replied, "Not yet."