Self Charm: Selected Sonnets & Other Poems

by Samuel Greenberg, Michael Carr (Editor), Michael Smith (Editor)

"Samuel Greenberg died of tuberculosis in 1917 at 23 years old. The contents of this selection date from around 1915 and 1916, during which he worked on his most concerted poetic effort, the Sonnets of Apology. Greenberg was an eccentric poet enraptured by language. His works only began to be noticed well after his death and, while still largely unknown, they are claimed to anticipate surrealism as well as having gained the admiration of Hart Crane & John Ashbery. The texts in this volume, some of which have never appeared in print before, retain the many idiosyncrasies of Greenberg’s original manuscripts."

Edited by Michael Carr and Michael Smith.

Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Samuel Bernard Greenberg was an Austrian-American Jewish poet and artist. Greenberg grew up in poverty on the Lower East Side of New York City and spent the last years of his life in and out of charity hospitals. He died of tuberculosis in the Manhattan State Hospital on Wards Island. Marc Simon writes, "Jacob and Hannah Greenberg, before coming to the new world, had lived with their family in Vienna. They had eight children; the sixth named Samuel was born in Vienna in 1893. His father supported the large family by embroidering gold and silver brocades for religious and other purposes . . . Greenberg attended public school 160 on Suffix Street at the corner of Rivington, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan."

The fullest collection of his poems is Poems by Samuel Greenberg, ed. Harold Holden and Jack McManis, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1947.

Critics have accused Hart Crane of plagiarizing Greenberg's poem "Conduct" for his own poem "Emblems of Conduct."

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Samuel^^^Greenberg

Reviews

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful magical poet.

I was able to find a huge selection of his poetry on-line.