Screeno: Stories & Poems

by Delmore Schwartz, Cynthia Ozick (Introduction)

Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966) was one of the finest writers of his generation. Winner of the prestigious Bollingen Prize and the Poetry Society of America’s Shelley Memorial Award, he was hailed by John Ashbery as “one of the major twentieth-century poets.” Schwartz’s stories were also widely read and loved, admired by James Atlas for their “unique style that enabled Schwartz to depict his characters with a sort of childlike verisimilitude.” Graced with an introduction by Cynthia Ozick, this New Directions Bibelot,  Stories & Poems , gathers many of Schwartz’s most popular works, “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities,” “America, America!” “The Heavy Bear who Goes with Me,” and “Screeno.” Also included is a newly discovered story, “The Heights of Joy,” which appeared in the magazine  Boulevard  in 2002. Delmore Schwartz’s life is legendary. The brightest star of the  Partisan Review ’s post-war intellectual circle, a lecturer at Harvard and Princeton, and perhaps the greatest poet of his generation, he was stricken by a cruel mental illness and died after living in solitude in a Manhattan hotel. Yet it is his work that “What complicates and enriches Schwartz’s comedy,” says Irving Howe, “is, I think, a reaching out toward nobility, a shy aspiring spirituality, a moment or two of achieved purity of feeling.”

Genres: Poetry, Short Stories, Fiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Delmore Schwartz was born December 8, 1913, in Brooklyn. The marriage of his parents Harry and Rose, both Roumanian immigrants, was doomed to fail. Sadly, this misfortune with relationships was also a theme in Schwartz's life. His alcoholism, frequent use of barbiturates and amphetamines, and battles with various mental diseases, proved adverse in his relationships with women. His first marriage to Gertrude Buckman lasted six years; his second, to the young novelist Elizabeth Pollett, ended after his ceaseless paranoid accusations of adultery led him to attack an art critic with whom he believed Elizabeth was having an affair.

Despite his turbulent and unsettling home life as a child, Schwartz was a gifted and intellectual young student. He enrolled early at Columbia University, and also studied at the University of Wisconsin, eventually receiving his bachelor's degree in 1935 in philosophy from New York University. In 1936 he won the Bowdoin Prize in the Humanities for his essay "Poetry as Imitation." In 1937 his short story "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" (successfully written in one month during the summer of 1935 after he locked himself in his Greenwich Village apartment) was published in Partisan Review, a left-wing magazine of American politics and culture; the following year this short story would be published by New Directions with other poetry and prose in his first book-length work, also titled In Dreams Begin Responsibilities. It was praised by many, including T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, Robert Lowell, and Vladimir Nabokov.

He never finished his advanced degree in philosophy at Harvard, but was hired as the Briggs-Copeland Lecturer, and later given an Assistant Professorship. Frustrated by what he believed was a sense of anti-Semitism within the school, in 1947 Schwartz ended his twelve-year association with Harvard and returned to New York City. His book of short stories The World is a Wedding was published the following year. Time compared Schwartz to Stendhal and Anton Chekhov. By this same time his work was widely anthologized. He was publishing critical essays on other important literary figures and cultural topics, and was the poetry editor at Partisan Review, and later also at New Republic.

His increasingly itinerant nature left him dependent on a series of teaching positions at Bennington College, Kenyon College, Princeton University, the writer's colony Yaddo, and at Syracuse University, in his last years. Among others, he inspired the student Lou Reed, who later dedicated "European Son" on the Velvet Underground's first album to Schwartz. In 1960 Schwartz became the youngest poet ever to win the Bollingen Prize. His friend Saul Bellow wrote a semi-fictional memoir about Schwartz called Humboldt's Gift, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

The last years of his life Schwartz was a solitary, disheveled figure in New York. He drank frequently at the White Horse Tavern, and spent his time sitting in parks and collecting bits of work, quotes, and translations in his journal. Finding himself penniless and virtually friendless, in the summer of 1966 Schwartz checked into the Times Squares hotel, perhaps to focus on his writing. Unfortunately by this time his body had been taxed by years of drug and alcohol abuse. He worked continuously until a heart attack on July 11 seized him in the lobby of the hotel.

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Source: poets.org

Reviews

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

When picking out books for the Sealey Challenge, I included a few by notables I'd never read. First up, Delmore Schwartz. Who could forget that name?! So... does he really qualify as "one of the finest poets of his generation"? Maybe back then. But based on the poems here, I'd say, "no." These verses feel a tad too self-conscious; the rhymes (when they occur), too strident; the metaphors, too mixed. He's the kind of poet who turns a clever phrase leaving you to think, "Well-put but that isn't true." It got me to wondering: How much of the praise he received at his peak was due to his role as a critic and editor for "The Partisan Review"? Were the other writers fawning? More importantly, is there a compelling reason to read him today? Let's put the poems aside for a moment when answering that question. Because the short stories in this slender volume are all quite good -- my favorite being "The Heights of Joy." There's something in the tone that reminds of Nathaniel West, maybe even John Cheever. So now if anyone should ask me if I like the poetry of Delmore Schwartz moving forward, I'll reply, "I prefer his fiction." With conviction.

[Michael Lindgren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Schwartz has always been a shadowy figure venerated in certain circles I have been peripheral to, so this New Directions pocket edition seemed a good place to start. It's interesting finally to see what the fuss was about: the troubled Schwartz was a gifted poet who managed somehow to combine romanticist lyricism with a skeptical, metaphysical slant on perception and art (he studied philosophy with AN Whitehead at Harvard). The title story and the justly famous "In Dreams Begin Responsiblities," meanwhile, are harrowing urban fables related in a dry yet distinctive tone. With a brief, sturdy 2002 introduction by Cynthia Ozick.

[Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two of the stories and maybe half a dozen of the poems collected here are ones I would rate as very good; none as great. Much of the work is very strained, including the odd story based on the life of Hedy Lamarr. I really wonder how Schwartz developed such as legend.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an introduction to Schwartz's work this is excellent and the only edition to contain stories and poems alongside each other.

[Kevin Kennedy]

I love delmore!