Bodenheim, Maxwell

Bodenheim, Maxwell

(bō`dənhīm), 1893–1954, American novelist and poet, b. Hermanville, Miss. His poetry, which incorporates many techniques of the imagistsimagists,
group of English and American poets writing from 1909 to about 1917, who were united by their revolt against the exuberant imagery and diffuse sentimentality of 19th-century poetry.
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, is cynical and often dwells on the grotesque. Important volumes of his verse are Minna and Myself (1918), Against This Age (1925), and Selected Poems 1914–1944 (1946). Bodenheim's novels, although savagely realistic and often brutal, contain great energy, humor, and an occasional streak of evangelism. They include Blackguard (1923), Replenishing Jessica (1925), and Georgia Man (1927). For many years a fixture of the bohemian scene in New York City's Greenwich Village, Bodenheim slipped into alcoholism and poverty in the 1940s. In Feb., 1954, he and his third wife were found murdered in a furnished room belonging to Harold Weinburg, who confessed to killing them and was found insane.

Bodenheim, Maxwell (b. Bodenheimer)

(1893–1954) poet, writer; born in Hermanville, Miss. He lived in Chicago from 1902; after being expelled from high school (1908), he mixed with the literary figures of Chicago before moving to New York City (1915). He published Minna and Myself (1918), the first of his 11 volumes of poetry; he also published novels, including Replenishing Jessica (1925), which were considered cynical and indecent. As the editor of Others, a poetry magazine, he is credited with discovering Hart Crane. Having lived most of his life as a bohemian and alcoholic, he and his third wife were murdered in Greenwich Village.