Tom Boggs (1905 – November 17, 1952) was an American poet, editor, and novelist who emerged as a

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

Bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Beer * National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst * Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...

during the Jazz Age of the 1920s.

Biography

He was born Thomas Kavanaugh Boggs in

Allegheny City Allegheny City was a municipality that existed in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania from 1788 until it was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1907. It was located north across the Allegheny River from downtown Pittsburgh, with its southwest border formed by ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, the son of prominent

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

doctor, Joseph Crosher Boggs (born 1867), and Alberta Marie (born 1867). He attended

Allegheny High School The Allegheny High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is a building from 1904. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. Notable graduates include William N. Robson, award-winning writer, director, and producer from the ...

. Boggs and fellow student Robert Clairmont met in Pittsburgh and became literary friends. Clairmont, a poet who inherited $350,000 under strange circumstances in 1925, left for New York, where he became an extravagant character in the Greenwich Village Bohemian scene and invited Boggs to join him. Boggs recorded many of their wild escapades in a novelized biography called ''Millionaire Playboy''. He also started a short-lived literary journal, bankrolled by Clairmont and launched on April Fools' Day 1927, called ''New Cow of Greenwich Village (A Monthly Periodical Sold on the Seven Arts as Such)''. He began publishing his earliest verse in high school and continued in New York. He was also an editor of many emerging poets in the American literary scene, including

Elizabeth Bishop Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979) was an American people, American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the N ...

, R.P. Blackmur,

John Ciardi John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...

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Kenneth Fearing Kenneth Flexner Fearing (July 28, 1902 – June 26, 1961) was an American poet and novelist. A major poet of the Depression era, he addressed the shallowness and consumerism of American society as he saw it, often by ironically adapting the lan ...

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Weldon Kees Harry Weldon Kees (February 24, 1914 – disappeared July 18, 1955) was an American poet, painter, literary critic, novelist, playwright, jazz pianist, short story writer, and filmmaker. Despite his brief career, Kees is considered an importa ...

Muriel Rukeyser Muriel Rukeyser (December 15, 1913 – February 12, 1980) was an American poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism. Kenneth Rexroth said that she was the greatest poet of her "ex ...

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, and

William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...

. Boggs died in 1952 of a heart attack at the

National Arts Club The National Arts Club is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and members club on Gramercy Park, Manhattan, New York City. It was founded in 1898 by Charles DeKay, an art and literary critic of the ''New York Times'' to "stimulate, foster, and promote public ...

while speaking to

Percy MacKaye Percy MacKaye (1875–1956) was an American dramatist and poet. Biography MacKaye was born in New York City into a theatrical family. His father, Steele MacKaye, was a popular actor, playwright, and producer, while his mother, Mary, wrote a dr ...

, for whom he was working at the time as a personal secretary. He is buried in

Homewood Cemetery Homewood Cemetery is a historic urban cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located in Point Breeze and is bordered by Frick Park, the neighborhood of Squirrel Hill, and the smaller Smithfield Cemetery. It was established i ...

in Pittsburgh.

Selected works

* ''New Cow of Greenwich Village'', literary magazine, (New York, 1927) * ''Millionaire Playboy: A Delirious and True Extravaganza of Inheriting a Fortune and Squandering It'', novel, (New York: The Vanguard Press, 1933) * ''51 Neglected Lyrics'', editor, poetry, (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1937) * ''Lyric Moderns in Brief, 1300-1938: Complete Lyrics from Longer Poems, Some from Manuscript'', editor, poetry, (New York: The Powgen Press, 1938) * ''Lyric Moderns in Brief: Some Modern Poets, a Number from Manuscript'', editor, poetry, (Prairie City, IL: The Press of James A. Decker, 1940) * ''New Poets: An Anthology of Seven Young Contemporary Poets: Tom Boggs, John Ciardi, Robert Clairmont, Minna Gellert, Lucy Kent, E.L. Mayo, Marshall Schacht'', editor, poetry, (Prairie City, IL: The Press of James A. Decker, 1941) * ''An American Anthology: 67 Poems Now in Anthology Form for the First Time'', editor, poetry, (Prairie City, IL: The Press of James A. Decker, 1942) * ''American Decade: 68 Poems for the First Time in an Anthology'', editor, poetry, (Cummington, MA: The Cummington Press, 1943) * ''Arenas'', poetry, (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc. 1943) * ''The Constant Mistress'', poetry, (Baltimore: Contemporary Poetry, 1945) * ''Of Love'', poetry, (Aldington

ent Ents are a species of beings in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world Middle-earth who closely resemble trees; their leader is Treebeard of Fangorn forest. Their name is derived from an Old English word for giant. The Ents appear in ''The Lord of ...

Hand and Flower Press, 1953) * ''In Good Times'', poetry, (London: The Bodley Head, 1955)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Boggs (poet), Tom 1905 births 1952 deaths 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American male writers Poets from Pennsylvania Writers from Pittsburgh American editors 20th-century American poets American male novelists Burials at Homewood Cemetery American male poets Novelists from Pennsylvania