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Harry Kemp

I lived from 1883-1960. I was from the United States, and am in the Americas category.

Harry Kemp was a published author and poet, known as the "Tramp Poet," and "The Poet of the Dunes," among other names. When Kemp was sixteen, he ran away to sea, shipping as cabin boy on the German ship, "Castle", bound for Australia. It was somewhat later when he settled down ashore and attended Kansas University; it was during his time there that he became known as "The Kansas Poet" and contributed to a number of books. Kemp is perhaps best known for the nautical poems he composed based on his deep-sea experience. In the years just before World War 1 he established himself in the summer artist colony of Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod where he lived in a driftwood beach house. He was a member of the group which included Eugene O'Neil, Jack Reed, and other Provincetown Players. Kemp became a slave to alcohol sometime in the 1930s, and lived on the largesse of those who had admired his work of earlier years. His work deteriorated and little from his last 30-odd years received any attention.

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  • Ship's Glamour
    When there wakes any wind to shake this place,
    This wave-hemmed atom of land on which I dwell,
    27 lines
  • The Remedy
    When you've failed with ordered people, when you've sunk neck-deep again
    In the sluggish wash and jetsam of the slackened tides of me
    24 lines, 1 comment
  • The Beach Comber
    I'd like to return to the world again,
    To the dutiful, work-a-day world of men, —
    17 lines
  • Kansas
    Let other countries glory in their past,
    But Kansas glories in her days to be,
    7 lines, 2 comments
  • A Sailor's Life
    Oh, a sailor hasn't much to brag —
    An oilskin suit and a dunnage bag.
    20 lines, 1 comment
  • The Endless Lure
    When I was a lad I went to sea
    And they made a cabin boy of me.
    29 lines
  • Hesperides
    Beyond the blue rim of the world,
    Washed round with languid-lapsing seas,
    19 lines
  • There's Nothing Like A Ship At Sea
    There's nothing like a ship at sea with all her sails full-spread
    And the ocean thundering backward 'neath her mounting figurehead
    18 lines, 7 comments
  • Fo'c'sle Comradeship
    There's not much in the fo'c'sle of a ship
    But old sea boots and chests that stand in rows
    16 lines, 1 comment
  • Wind-Jammer's Song (1845 Clipper Days)
    All hands on deck, below there!
    The storm is coming soon,
    35 lines, 1 comment
1 - 10 of 36  Show all by written, popularity, title, first line

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