Born July 28, 1902 in Oak Park, Illinois, Kenneth Fearing’s father was a Chicago attorney and his mother a journalist. His mother would abandon her formal domestic role shortly after Kenneth’s birth to return to her career, leaving her son to be brought up by his father and aunt. In high school, Fearing was voted both class pessimist and greatest wit, and afterwards he attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison. At college he displayed considerable literary gifts, but was initially kept from graduation by a failing math grade.
American Rhapsody of Discontent
After college, Fearing went to New York in 1925 and became romantically involved with author Margery Latimer. He earned rent money as a writer of racy pulp novels under the pseudonym Kirk Wolff, and also worked on his poetry. Fearing greatly admired Walt Whitman's natural eloquence, and his own verse included a skilful use of American slang and rhythms of speech and portrayed the chaos of 1920s urban life. Fearing was soon published by such forums as The New Yorker and Poetry magazines, and his 1929 collection entitled Angel Arms was critically praised.
Fearing‘s poems undermined the various legends of the high-living Roaring Twenties and suggested a sense of darkness behind the scenes, with a premonition of the Great Depression that would follow. This excerpt from “American Rhapsody (4)” indicates that beyond the wild laughter and music of the times, something is not quite right:
…First you dance the same dance and you drink
the same drink you always drank before.
And the piano builds a roof of notes above the world….
But first, baby, as you climb and mount the stairs…did you,
sometime or somewhere, have a different idea?
Is this, baby, what you were born to feel, and do, and be?
Fearing’s fame as a poet would continue to grow throughout the 1930s, and he won Guggenheim Fellowships in 1936 and then in 1939. He was compared to Carl Sandburg and considered one of the best poets of his day, particularly for his work’s intermingling of social classes and flair for language and vernacular. Still, Fearing found it difficult to make a living from his poetry--beyond fellowship awards--and began to focus on writing fiction instead.
Fiction and The Big Clock
Fearing’s first novel, The Hospital, was based on real life experiences, and other books included Dagger of The Mind and his 1946 best-known fiction work, The Big Clock. The Big Clock was received well as a murder mystery novel and later as a film noir classic with its quirky characters, intriguing plot, and Fearing‘s general forte for character and dialogue.
A hard-drinking, heavy smoker who was occasionally a bit lax on hygiene, Fearing nonetheless married twice and always seemed capable of great charm and humor. His politics were decidedly left-leaning, although he never officially joined the Communist party because he felt the meetings were too tiresome. In the conservative and often restricted era of the American 1950s, Fearing’s reputation went somewhat out of favor and his poems and novels following The Big Clock did not fare as well.
Later Years and Legacy
Fearing spent his later years in a bad way, continuing on with his heavy drinking and smoking while struggling to make ends meet. He died of cancer in 1961, relatively forgotten, but in recent years his collected works have been published and he is often noted as being one of the great poetic and truth-telling voices of the American Depression.
Sources
Kenneth Fearing -- Answers.com
Modern American Poetry -- Kenneth Fearing Biography
The Complete Poems of Kenneth Fearing (National Poetry Foundation, 1994)
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