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Sol Funaroff

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Sol Funaroff (May 1, 1911-October 29, 1942) was an American poet.

Biography

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Funaroff was born in Beirut, to a family of Russian Jewish immigrants.[1] His family moved across several European countries before immigrating to New York.[2] He was educated at Franklin Lane High School in Brooklyn, where he edited the high school literary magazine, and he later took evening courses at City College.[3] At the beginning of his literary career he joined the John Reed Clubs, a group he later described as "instrumental in raising the battle-cry of proletarian art"[4]

He was a follower of the Dynamo school of poetry, along with Muriel Rukeyser and Kenneth Fearing.[5] In 1933, Funaroff founded Dynamo Press.[6] The first book Funaroff published in the Dynamo Press poetry series was his friend Edwin Rolfe's book To My Contemporaries.[7] In 1938, Funaroff worked on the Federal Writers' Project guidebook to New York City, collaborating on the book with Richard Wright and Maxwell Bodenheim.[8]

In his poetry, Funaroff avoided abstract themes and focused on modern society and the depictions of the working class.[9] In common with other poets of the Dynamo School, his works depict modern machinery as a symbol of progress and the improvement of humanity.[10] In many works, he used assemblage to depict the lives of the American workers.[11] Mike Gold described Funaroff's works as a combination of "abstract manifesto and personal lyricism".[12] Funaroff's works used modernist techniques influenced by the cinematic montage "to visualize the social and political themes" of his works.[13] Funaroff's Marxist politics made him critical of other prominent poets. Funaroff published "What the Thunder Said: A Fire Sermon", a 1938 parody of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, that used montage techniques in its depiction of Communist revolution.[14] He also criticized the limited focus of William Carlos Williams, comparing him to a painter of miniatures, rather a muralist who could depict society on a large scale.[15] Funaroff wrote that Objectivism lacked a purpose and an understanding of the capitalist roots of poverty.[16]

Funaroff was active in the Keep America Out of War Committee, arranging a reading of anti-war poetry for the group.[17] He also wrote the poem for Anna Sokolow's solo dance The Exile.[18]

His funeral was organized by the International Workers Order and featured tributes from Samuel Sillen and Joy Davidman.[19] Kenneth Rexroth wrote about Funaroff in his poem "Thou Shalt Not Kill", along with other dead poets from the 1930s, asking "What became of Jim Oppenheim? Where is Sol Funaroff?"[20]

Bibliography

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  • The Spider and the Clock. New York: International Publishers, 1938.
  • Exile From a Future Time: The Posthumous Poems of Sol Funaroff. New York: Dynamo, 1943.

References

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  1. ^ Rood, Tim (2005). The sea! The sea! the shout of the ten thousand in the modern imagination. London ; Woodstock, NY: Duckworth Overlook. p. 195. ISBN 978-1-58567-664-4.
  2. ^ Graham, Helen (2012). The War and Its Shadow: Spain's Civil War in Europe's Long Twentieth Century. Sussex Academic Press. p. 77. ISBN 9781845195106.
  3. ^ Wald, Alan M. (2012). Exiles From a Future Time: The Forging of the Mid-Twentieth-Century Literary Left. University of North Carolina Press. p. 205. ISBN 9781469608679.
  4. ^ Tilkin, Anita (November 1, 1938). "A Worker - An Extraordinary Poet". The Daily Worker. p. 7.
  5. ^ Kertesz, Louise (1980). The poetic vision of Muriel Rukeyser. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-8071-0552-8.
  6. ^ Nelson, Cary; Hendricks, Jefferson (1990). Edwin Rolfe: A Biographical Essay and Guide to the Rolfe Archive at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. University of Illinois Press. p. 19. ISBN 9780252061790.
  7. ^ Thurston, Michael (2003). Making something happen : American political poetry between the world wars. University of North Carolina Press. p. 2. ISBN 9780807875001.
  8. ^ Mangione, Jerre (1996). The dream and the deal : the Federal Writers' Project, 1935-1943. Syracuse University Press. p. 245. ISBN 9780815604150.
  9. ^ Brown, Leonard; Perrin, Porter G., eds. (1935). A Quarto of Modern Literature. Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 225.
  10. ^ Kertesz, Louise (1980). The poetic vision of Muriel Rukeyser. Louisiana State University Press. p. 9. ISBN 080710552X.
  11. ^ Goldstein, Laurence (1996). The movies : texts, receptions, exposures. University of Michigan Press. p. 76. ISBN 9780472066407.
  12. ^ Nelson, Cary (1989). Repression and recovery : modern American poetry and the politics of cultural memory, 1910-1945. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 151. ISBN 9780299123444.
  13. ^ Nelson, Emmanuel S. (2005). The Greenwood encyclopedia of multiethnic American literature. Vol. 2. Greenwood Press. p. 777. ISBN 0313330611.
  14. ^ Goldstein, Laurence (1995). The American poet at the movies : a critical history. University of Michigan Press. p. 75. ISBN 9780472083183.
  15. ^ Kalaidijan, Walter B. (1993). American culture between the wars : revisionary modernism & postmodern critique. Columbia University Press. p. 108. ISBN 9780231082792.
  16. ^ Marsh, John (2011). Hog butchers, beggars, and busboys : Poverty, labor, and the making of modern American poetry. University of Michigan Press. p. 230. ISBN 9780472071579.
  17. ^ Folsom, Franklin (1994). Days of anger, days of hope: a memoir of the League of American Writers, 1937 - 1942. Niwot, Colo: Univ. Press of Colorado. p. 193. ISBN 978-0-87081-332-0.
  18. ^ Warren, Larry (1991). Anna Sokolow: the rebellious spirit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Book Co. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-87127-162-4.
  19. ^ "Funaroff's Death Mourned Here". The Daily Worker. November 2, 1942. p. 5.
  20. ^ Theado, Matt (2003). The Beats: A Literary Reference. Da Capo Press. p. 86. ISBN 9780786710997.
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