Read Bain

From Philosopedia

Bain, Read (1920—1962)

In the 1950s, Bain, who taught sociology at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, was poetry editor of The Humanist.

In "Today's Poetry: A Symposium - III," the poet Miriam Allen DeFord wrote a letter to The Humanist (15, 5, 1955, pp. 227-228) to praise an article that had previously appeared in that magazine by Read Bain: "Poetry and the Cult of Incomprehensibility."

A propos of Read Bain's "Poetry and the Cult of Incomprehensibility" - of which I approve highly - I am reminded of a definition of my own, made some time ago, of what Max Eastman has called "poets talking to themselves." I have called this ultra avant-garde poetry "Martha-colored poetry." Edith Sitwell once wrote a poem in which she called something "Martha-colored." She explained that when she was a child she had a nurse who wore a dress of that color - whatever it was. I think the ascription is obvious.

(See David T. Lewis’s The Published Works of Read Bain, 1962; and Bain's "An Inferiority Compensation of Sociologists".)

Correspondence

Following is some of Bain's correspondence with the Book Review Editor of The Humanist in the mid-1950s:

{HNS}