Kenneth Fearing

Kenneth Fearing (1902-1961) was born in Oak Park, Illinois. His parents divorced when he was a year old, and he was raised mainly by his aunt. After studying at the University of Wisconsin, Fearing moved to New York City where he began a career as a poet and was active in leftist politics. In the Twenties and Thirties, he published regularly in The New Yorker and Poetry and helped found The Partisan Review, while also working as an editor, journalist, and speechwriter and turning out a good deal of pulp fiction, including pornography. A selection of Fearing’s poems has been published as part of the Library of America’s American Poets Project.
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