Alfred Kreymborg

How many monkeys are you?

Alfred Francis Kreymborg (December 10, 1883 – August 14, 1966) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, literary editor and anthologist.

Quotes

• Manhattan’s a hell where culture rarely grew—
  But it lets two lives do all they care to do.
  • "Two Lives and Six Million", in The Bookman, vol. 68, no. 1 (September, 1928), p. 24

• The people who usually enjoy chess are the dubs and duffers, experts who have resigned their ambitions and now play for pastime, and the fraternity of kibitzers.
  • "Chess Reclaims a Devotee", in The American Mercury, vol. 20, no. 80 (August, 1930), p. 448

Mushrooms: A Book of Free Forms (1916)

New York: John Marshall & Co.

• I am four monkeys.
  One hangs from a limb,
  tail-wise,
  chattering at the earth;
  another is cramming his belly with cocoanut;
  the third is up in the top branches,
  quizzing the sky;
  and the fourth—
  he’s chasing another monkey.
  How many monkeys are you?
  • "The Tree" (p. 30)

• The sky
  is that beautiful old parchment
  in which the sun and the moon
  keep their diary.
  • "Old Manuscript" (p. 74)

The Little World: 1914 and After (1932)

New York: Coward-McCann

Harlem has a black belt where darkies dwell in a heaven where white men seek a little hell.

• Satan
  the envious
  said with a sigh:
  Christians
  know more
  about their hell
  than I.
  • "Envious Satan" (p. 9)

• Harlem
  has a black belt
  where darkies dwell
  in a heaven
  where white men
  seek a little hell.
  • "Crossing the Color Line" (p. 99)

• Defiant love sonnets
  demanding nude joys
  lure girls to be naughty
  and live like the boys.
  • "E.S.V.M." (p. 150)

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Alfred Kreymborg on Wikipedia