Walter Lowenfels
Walter Lowenfels was an influential American poet and editor born in New York City on May 10, 1897. He started his career in the family butter business before turning to poetry after World War I, publishing his first collection, "Episodes and Epistles," in 1925. In 1926, he moved to Paris, where he married Lillian Apotheker and co-founded Carrefour Press in 1930, known for its commitment to anonymous publishing. However, this principle was challenged following a plagiarism suit related to one of his plays. Lowenfels was a vocal member of the Communist Party and worked as a reporter for the party's newspaper, Daily Worker, upon returning to the U.S. in 1934. His political engagement and advocacy for freedom were reflected in several anthologies, including "Where Is Vietnam?" and "In the Time of Revolution." He faced legal troubles in 1953 when he was arrested for conspiracy but later had his conviction overturned. Lowenfels passed away on July 7, 1976, in Tarrytown, New York, leaving behind a legacy of avant-garde poetry and political activism.
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Walter Lowenfels
Poet
- Born: May 10, 1897
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: July 7, 1976
- Place of death: Tarrytown, New York
Biography
Poet and editor Walter Lowenfels was born in New York City on May 10, 1897. He graduated from a New York preparatory school in 1914, and then worked in his father’s butter business from 1914 to 1926. He began writing poetry after World War I, and some of his poems were published in local newspapers. His first poetry collection, Episodes and Epistles, was published in 1925.
Lowenfels moved to Paris in 1926 and married Lillian Apotheker soon after his arrival. He founded Carrefour Press with Michael Fraenkel in 1930. They expressed their commitment to anonymous publishing with their manifesto Anonymous: The Need for Anonymity, but they abandoned this creed after Lowenfels’s play, USA with Music, resulted in a plagiarism suit against George Gershwin in 1932. Lowenfels went on to write and edit several collections of left-leaning poetry.
In 1934, Lowenfels returned to the United States with his wife and three daughters. He was a member of the Communist Party and became a reporter for the Pennsylvania edition of the party’s newspaper, Daily Worker. He was arrested in 1953 for conspiring to overthrow the United States’ government, but his conviction was soon overturned. His collection The Prisoner’s Poems for Amnesty was published in 1954.
In addition to his own writing, he was a prominent anthologist of avant-garde poetry, and many of these works reflected his Marxist beliefs and support for political freedom. His political anthologies include Where Is Vietnam? (1967), In the Time of Revolution (1969), From the Belly of the Shark (1973), and For Neruda, for Chile (1975). An anthology of Lowenfels’s writings, titled The Portable Walter, came out in 1968. In 1970, he and Howard McCord cowrote The Life of Fraenkel’s Death: A Biographical Inquest, a biography of his longtime friend and business partner Michael Fraenkel. Lowenfels died in Tarrytown, New York, on July 7, 1976.