I’ve never been much of a fan of modernist poetry. Too often, it feels esoteric—odd for the sake of odd. When I used to teach American Literature, I would show my students two classic examples from Ezra Pound:
L’Art, 1910
by Ezra Pound
Green arsenic smeared on an egg-white cloth,
Crushed strawberries! Come, let us feast our eyes.
A splash of color, yes, but more like a cryptic painter’s note than a poem—striking yet emotionally opaque.
And then his most famous imagist fragment:
In a Station of the Metro
by Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Haunting, yes, but abstract and slippery, more an intellectual exercise than a window into human feeling.
Sixteen words about a piece of art with colors of green and red, fourteen words about a metro station—striking, but also elusive.
So when The American Academy of Poets’ Poem-a-Day recently featured Alfred Kreymborg’s “Those Everlasting Blues,” I expected something similar—another cryptic fragment of modernism. Instead, I was taken aback. This poem spoke to me in a way I didn’t anticipate. Beneath its simple diction and repetition, I heard the cry of a heart broken by longing. And in that ache, I recognized something deeply personal.
Since beginning this blog, I’ve been blessed with many wonderful friendships, like my cherished bond with Susan. But there have also been two men who, in different ways, claimed my heart. One lived far away and struggled with a debilitating illness; when he passed, I mourned but had known it was inevitable. The other’s loss, though, nearly destroyed me. He was a fragile young man who had begun to rebuild his life, and though he loved someone else, he also loved me—and I him. We spoke every day, ending each night with “I love you.” Then a tragic car accident cut his life short, and with it, a piece of my own heart.
Reading Kreymborg’s poem, I felt all of that loss return—the “everlasting blues” of loving someone you cannot keep. It reminded me that poetry’s power isn’t in being clever or obscure, but in giving voice to the things we ourselves can barely name.
Those Everlasting Blues
By Alfred Kreymborg
There ain’t gonna be
any more
mad parties
between
you and me
and it ain’t
gonna be
because I
love you less
but love you more.
And there ain’t
gonna be
any more
sad parties
between us two
because I’m
gonna forget
what I want
till I see
what I want
is you.
And I ain’t
gonna find
what you are
till I find
what it is
that you want
of me
and how
am I
gonna see
what it is
till all
of myself
loves you.
And I don’t
really love
you though I
love you more
than the world
till I learn
to swallow
whatever
you’d like
me to do.
And I ain’t
gonna down
whatever
that little
may be
till I love
me less and
love you more
and love you
for yourself
alone.
If there ain’t
gonna be
any loving
just you
alone
then it’s up
to me to
be taking
myself and
moving myself
off home.
And I’ll
be dragging
what’s left of me
to my lonely
room in the blue
and never
come back
and never
crawl back
till I’m through
just hugging
me.
And I ain’t
no I ain’t
gonna stop
doing that as
I ought to do
till I’m ab-
solutely and
positively
in love and
in love with
you.
And when I’ve
done that and
done only that
and done all of that
for you
you’ll hear me
on the doorstep
ringing at the
doorbell
for one more
party for two.
With nothing
mad in it
nothing sad
in it but
a long glad
lifelong spree
with me myself
loving you yourself
and you
loving me
for me.
When reading Alfred Kreymborg’s “Those Everlasting Blues” today, it’s easy to feel the poem pulsing with queer longing. The speaker aches for someone elusive, desired but never quite possessed. The repetition of “blues” and the sense of yearning that never resolves can strike a modern queer reader as deeply familiar: the pain of unspoken desire, of wanting someone who cannot—or will not—be fully yours.
Even though the poem is voiced as a woman’s lament for a man, nothing in the language itself insists on a heterosexual relationship. In fact, if we strip away the assumed gendering, the poem reads seamlessly as one man mourning his infatuation with another. Kreymborg’s plain, conversational diction keeps the focus on raw feeling rather than social convention, which makes the poem ripe for queer reinterpretation.
This is the power of queer reading: taking texts from the past and listening for the silences, the undercurrents, and the ways desire breaks through the boundaries of its time. For many queer readers today, Kreymborg’s “blues” could be the blues of any marginalized love—aching, unending, and yet profoundly human.
So does this mean Kreymborg himself was gay? Not necessarily. Biographically, there is no evidence he engaged in same-sex relationships. But “Those Everlasting Blues” belongs to his 1916 collection Manhattan Men, where he frequently wrote in other voices—shifting genders, adopting dramatic personae, and speaking through masks.
This “gender ventriloquism” was part of the larger modernist toolbox. Early twentieth-century poets often experimented with persona and dramatic monologue, inspired by classical models and energized by the free verse movement. Ezra Pound spoke through medieval troubadours, H.D. adopted mythic figures like Eurydice and Helen, and T.S. Eliot gave voice to Prufrock and Tiresias. For Kreymborg, writing in a woman’s voice allowed him to explore emotional registers that might have been difficult to express directly.
While his original intent may not have been queer, his willingness to blur identity in poetry—speaking as “the other”—is what allows queer readers to hear themselves in his work. The fluidity of voice makes his poetry feel like a space where hidden or forbidden desires could be expressed indirectly.
Whether or not Alfred Kreymborg personally shared the “everlasting blues” of same-sex longing, his poem gives us a vessel to pour that experience into. That is the beauty of queer reading: recognizing how art transcends the limits of biography and becomes a space where new meanings—our meanings—can flourish.
About the Poet
Alfred Kreymborg (1883–1966) was an American poet, playwright, editor, and anthologist who played a key role in the rise of literary modernism in New York. A central figure in Greenwich Village’s bohemian scene, he was the founding editor of Others: A Magazine of the New Verse (1915–1919), which introduced American audiences to avant-garde voices like Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, and Mina Loy.
Kreymborg’s career was eclectic—he wrote poetry, drama, fiction, and memoirs, and even performed on mandolin in experimental productions. His work was often overshadowed by his more famous contemporaries, but he was a connector and promoter of new voices at a time when American poetry was breaking free from strict formal traditions.
Importantly, Kreymborg moved in circles that included many queer and queer-adjacent writers: Hart Crane, Djuna Barnes, and others who challenged conventional ideas of gender, sexuality, and identity in literature. While there is no evidence that Kreymborg himself identified as gay, his friendships and collaborations with these writers placed him in a cultural moment where queer creativity thrived beneath the surface.
Joe
The Closet Professor 
August 19th, 2025 at 12:19 pm
I’ll admit, it is rare that poetry of any kind grabs me or holds meaning for me, a few scattered. I frequently struggle to even read poetry let alone understand it.I guess I just don’t have it.Or perhaps it goes back to college, sophomore year, failing whatever that one course was. I understood but could not fully accept or fully agree with the ideas and interpretations the teacher pushed on us, expected us to have. Perhaps had she included history on the authors, helped us gain understanding of the authors life and ideals?Of course, my college experience in Utah in the 1980s certain things were taboo, off limits to say or publicly explore in state colleges even if they were factual and pertinent.Either way, my views were seemingly wrong.I rapidly came to appreciate that with your poetry posts, information about the author and about their works helping form a clearer understanding of the authors and the writings.
As I started reading Those Everlasting Blues I don’t think I had any conscious application of gender, the only preconceptions being your words in the paragraphs before, so maybe there was some queer implications. Somewhere around line 16, reading:
because I’mgonna forgetwhat I want
Sounds like something I would write and my mind conjured clear images, secret yearnings of one who is closeted so deeply, the speaker or the object of the love, that the love cannot possibly be expressed or experienced.Very likely that feeling, my feeling, while reading this is based on the paths I’ve wandered before embarking on this journey, the loves I had, I wanted, I yearned for, still want and yearn for, but couldn’t allow. Perhaps it has more to do with where I am in this journey.
Rereading Those Everlasting Blues after a few hours have passed I can see, apply, some different broader feelings and thoughts. Though all come back to what you wrote “The speaker aches for someone elusive, desired but never quite possessed” whatever the reason.
August 19th, 2025 at 12:49 pm
I am not a literature professor though I have taught literature for a private high school. I used to say I taught football English, because with the exception of one or two students, they were always football players. (I used to say my goal was to make sure they were not the ones interviewed when the tornado hit their trailer park. It was a terrible thing to say, but if you’ve ever seen tornado coverage, you know what I mean.)
I love poetry and I tried to find ways to make them understand it. At least when they left my British lit class, they could read a poem, and if it was a sonnet, they could tell you what type of sonnet it was. Not a practical thing to know, but all teachers have their thing. They enjoyed the class though.
When I taught the interpretation of poetry, I wanted my students to read a poem and tell me what they thought it meant. Maybe not all poets feel this way, but I think poetry is there to evoke whatever feelings you get when you read the poem.
I read this poem and there were tears in my eyes thinking of those I’ve loved. Poems can do that. I would tell the students the common, i.e. “scholarly,” interpretation of a poem, but it was more about what did it invoke in them, even if it was “WTF did I just read?” Because let’s face it, that’s what some poems invoke in me. Today’s Poem of the Day was “I’m Dating a Man Who’s Married” was meant to be convoluted, and sure enough it is, but I could take the time to understand each part of it, and I’d like to. I’ll probably feature it at some point. The guest editor for Poem a Day this month is a gay man, so there’s a lot of poems I’m finding to use.
Just remember, it’s what it means to you. What I write, I do so to hopefully to get you to think about the poem, but it’s your interpretation that matters, even if it’s “WTF did I just read?”.
August 19th, 2025 at 2:39 pm
Thank you, Joe.
Always nice to get a sense of validation. And to know it’s okay to feel what I feel, even if the response is WTF. That helps. A lot!
Even though I had a teacher that tried to push or force certain interpretations, certain directions in our thought processes, I am a firm believer of what is invoked in the reader being of great value. Whether it’s a poem (even if I struggle with poems), a book, a scripture, or simply a passage of a larger piece. I see what is invoked as the start, the beginning of a greater understanding of self, of the specific work, maybe even of the world around us if we choose to delve deeper into why it invoked the specific feelings or meaning.
The tornado coverage analogy. Yes. I chuckle with that one.
I’m rural, the typical tornado is out in thousands of open acres, rarely effecting buildings… adding a twist (pun intended) being activated as a “spotter” and 1st responder I’m frequently in the immediate area, watching the tornado, advising dispatch or OEM of specifics in real time, checking the area in the immediate aftermath. Tornado coverage interviews, despite wanting to be respectful, can become a unique form of entertainment.
Sorry about the formatting of my original comment.
What I see here is not what it looked like when I clicked reply… guess I need to keep looking at settings on the browser, has been doing weird things since the last OS update.
August 19th, 2025 at 2:53 pm
I was looking at your comment on my phone through the app I use to post my blog entries, so it looked fine to me.
One of the things you listed when say what it invoked in the reader is important is a scripture. I’m a firm believer that it is the Holy Spirit that guides us when we look at scripture. We may interpret it vastly differently than anyone else, but it’s what our heart tells us that matters. I tend to look at the context surrounding a piece of scripture, but when I read the Bible and I am particularly moved by a passage, I believe it is because that’s what God wanted.
If this was 500 years ago, the Catholic Church would have had me burned at the stake for writing what injustice wrote.
August 19th, 2025 at 12:56 pm
One more thing: There is a difference between teaching a student what to think and teaching a student how to think. The difference is: a bad teacher and a good teacher. Educators should be there to open minds, sometimes that means challenging the status quo, and that’s perfectly valid as long as you can say, “This is why I think it’s….” Because if you’ve done your job, they’ll be able to tell you why they came to the answer they came to. By the way, I do the same with my art history classes.
I have a meeting to get to, so I’ll get off my high horse. 😉
August 19th, 2025 at 3:06 pm
Yep! The student grapevine was full of neutrality for that specific teacher. I just wanted to get the last GE credits out of the way so I enrolled in her course. The one and only course I ever had from her.
Had I waited until the next semester the experience would have been entirely different… The next few semesters Mr Snow taught that course.
I was a rebel in many ways and although it was very subtle, Mr Snow was a rebel too, bucking the system while still conforming.
I had two classes from Mr Snow, both were full of the attitude– “this is what I’m expected to teach you, what the powers that be say you need to know at the end of this course” versus “I believe this is more important for you to understand, to learn, that any of that stuff“.
And a lot of that came in the way he sought to get us to think for ourselves, to have our own opinions and to vigorously defend those opinions whether they were popular and accepted or not.
August 19th, 2025 at 3:09 pm
He sounds like a great teacher!