Editing Eli Siegel (section)

==Life==
Born in [[Dvinsk]], [[Russian Empire]], Siegel emigrated to the United States in 1905 with his parents, Mendel and Sarah (Einhorn) Siegel. The family settled in [[Baltimore, Maryland]], where Siegel attended [[Baltimore City College]] and joined the speech and debate team now referred to as the [[Bancroft/Carrollton-Wight Literary Societies]]. He contributed to the senior publication ''The Green Bag'' and graduated in 1919. In 1922, together with V.F. Calverton [George Goetz], he co-founded ''The Modern Quarterly,'' a magazine in which his earliest essays appeared, including "The Scientific Criticism" (Vol. I, No. 1, March 1923) and "The Equality of Man" (Vol. I, No. 3, December 1923).<ref>{{cite book|last=Siegel|first=Eli|title=''The Modern Quarterly Beginnings of Aesthetic Realism 1922-1923''|year=1997|publisher=Definition Press|location=New York|isbn=0-910492-35-2}}</ref>

In 1925, his "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana" was selected from four thousand anonymously submitted poems<ref>Editors' Note, ''The Nation'' Vol. 120, No. 3110, page 148 (February 11, 1925): "there were 4,000 manuscripts submitted to the poetry contest."</ref> as the winner of ''The Nation's'' esteemed poetry prize.<ref>Mark Van Doren in ''Prize Poems, 1913-1929'' page 19 (NY: Charles Boni, 1930): "The ''Nation'' prize ... was always a spectacle to be looked forward to, and the fame which came to certain poems like Stephen Vincent Benet's "King David" and Eli Siegel's "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana" was an interesting index of the importance attributed by the lay public to poetry."</ref>  The magazine's editors described it as "the most passionate and interesting poem which came in—a poem recording through magnificent rhythms a profound and important and beautiful vision of the earth on which afternoons and men have always existed."<ref>Editors Oswald Garrison Villard, Lewis S. Gannett, Arthur Warner, Joseph Wood Krutch, Freda Kirchwey, and Mark Van Doren, ''The Nation'' Vol. 120, No. 3110, page 136 (February 11, 1925).</ref><ref>Alexander Laing in "The Nation and its Poets," page 212. ''The Nation'', Vol. 201, No. 8 (September 20, 1965): "This year they chose 'Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana' because it seemed to them 'the most passionate and interesting poem that came in.'"</ref> The poem begins:<br />
::Quiet and green was the grass of the field,
::The sky was whole in brightness,
::And O, a bird was flying, high, there in the sky,
::So gently, so carelessly and fairly.

"Hot Afternoons" met violent opposition, according to William Carlos Williams, who wrote, years later: "Only today do I realize how important that poem is in the history of our development as a cultural entity."<ref>''Something to Say—William Carlos Williams on Younger Poets,'' edited by James E. B. Breslin (New York: New Directions, 1985), p.250 </ref><ref>Deborah A. Straub in ''Contemporary Authors:'' "Siegel immediately became the focus of a literary controversy. His innovative technique and unorthodox approach to his material tended to polarize reviewers' reactions to the poem; as [[Michael Kernan|[Michael] Kernan]] remarked [in ''The Washington Post'', 8/16/78], "some critics loved it, others were outraged."</ref><ref>Alexander Laing in "The Nation and its Poets," page 212. ''The Nation'', Vol. 201, No. 8 (September 20, 1965): "The vigor of ''The Nation's'' influence was demonstrated in an immediate editorial uproar across the country ... Much of it assumed the form of raucous parody ... This is notable because the award to Siegel helped to dramatize, for a large audience, a transition in the perception of literary values which at this midpoint of the 1920s was already evident, although still arcane. If ''The Nation's'' choice, 'Hot Afternoons,' is thought of as nothing more than a catalyst, the magazine's willingness to stand up for the unorthodox in poetry was symbolically important."</ref> "In Hot Afternoons", Siegel later explained, "I tried to take many things that are thought of usually as being far apart and foreign and to show, in a beautiful way, that they aren't so separate and that they do have a great deal to do with one another."<ref>Deborah A. Straub, ''Contemporary Authors:'' "Siegel composed "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana" with this principle in mind, taking "many things that are thought of usually as being far apart and foreign and [showing], in a beautiful way, that they aren't so separate and that they do have a great deal to do with each other."</ref><ref>Corbett & Boldt: Modern American Poetry, page 144. The Macmillan Company, 1965: "Siegel's poetry reveals a view of reality in which 'the very self of a thing is its relation, its having-to-do-with other things.'"</ref>

Siegel continued writing poetry throughout his life but devoted the majority of his time over the next decades to developing the philosophy he later called Aesthetic Realism. After moving to New York City, he became a member of the [[Greenwich Village]] poets, famous for his dramatic readings of "Hot Afternoons" and other poems. His two-word poem, ''One Question'',  won recognition in 1925 as the shortest poem in the English language.<ref>[http://www.aestheticrealism.net/Balt-Sun-Hiaasen-02.htm ''The Baltimore Sun'', April 25, 2002]</ref> It appeared in the ''Literary Review'' of the ''[[New York Evening Post]]'':

{{poemquote|''One Question''
I&nbsp;—
Why?}}
This poem was later reprinted without the author's name in an anthology edited by Louis Untermeyer and an anthology edited by Max J. Herzberg.<ref>''The Williams-Siegel Documentary'', edited by Martha Baird and Ellen Reiss (New York: Definition Press, 1970), p.133).</ref>
<br>

For several years in the 1930s Siegel served as master of ceremonies for regular poetry readings that were well known for combining poetry and jazz.<ref>J. Dosbriora Irwin, "Village Portraits", in ''Greenwich Village Weekly News'' May 1933, Number 33, page 3: "Someone told me, a few days ago, that, to-date, Eli Siegel was the most popular man on what may be termed the left wing of the Village. This is no doubt true, but Eli Siegel, as I know him, is not a politician ... He is too utterly true and too sincere to lobby, handshake or praise.  Eli Siegel has another mission in life than to be popular amongst men.  That mission is to be true to himself, to his soul, to his work. Hence he gains respect, which is ever so much more important than popularity.  I do not mean by this that Eli Siegel shuts himself into an Ivory Tower ... no ... not exactly. He has actually many friends and his friendship is just the human exchange to give and take that real friendship should be.  But because he is a little finer, a little more idealistic, more sincere than most, and because work means to him a little more, one classes him amidst the rather superior beings one is privileged to meet here and there through life, and that one can, perhaps like or love, despise or envy, but always must respect.
 ... Also, he composes the delicate or violent, the sentimental or humorous poems he recites evenings, and prepares the highly documented literary lectures he delivers at the Sam Johnson. For Eli Siegel is a past master at entertaining, at holding the interest of an audience, also at gathering about him men and women of talent and at encouraging them in the field of their particular endeavours. Despite the genius of his profound mind, Eli Siegel is not egoistic, but sensitive to all beauty, appreciative of all artistic expressions.</ref> He was also a regular reviewer for [[Scribners|''Scribner's'']] magazine and the ''[[New York Evening Post]]'' Literary Review. In 1938, Siegel began teaching poetry classes with the view that "what makes a good poem is like what can make a good life". In 1941, students in these classes asked him to give individual lessons in which they might learn about their own lives. These were the first Aesthetic Realism lessons.<ref>Deborah A. Straub in Contemporary Authors: "Siegel continued to be preoccupied with studying and teaching the new philosophy of life and art he had begun to develop in the 1920s and 1930s. Known first as Aesthetic Analysis and later as Aesthetic Realism, this philosophy sprang from Siegel's belief that "what makes a good poem is like what can make a good life{{nbsp}}..."</ref>

In 1944, Siegel married Martha Baird ([[University of Iowa]]), who had begun studying in his classes the year before. Baird would later become Secretary of the Society for Aesthetic Realism, and also a musicologist and poet in her own right.[https://aestheticrealism.net/poetry/Baird_Biography.htm]

In 1946, at [[Steinway Hall]], Siegel began giving weekly lectures in which he presented the philosophy he first called Aesthetic Analysis (later, Aesthetic Realism) "a philosophic way of seeing conflict in self and making this conflict clear to a person so that a person becomes more integrated and happier".<ref>Donald Kirkley in "Poet Outlines a Philosophy," Baltimore Sun, August 2, 1946: "More than 160 persons ... attended the introductory talk. Subsequent lectures will be given weekly at Steinway Hall. Tonight's theme was "Self and World." In it, Mr. Siegel affirmed his belief that "aesthetic analysis can be of help to everybody." It is, he said, 'a philosophic way of seeing conflict in self and making this conflict clear to a person so that a person becomes more integrated and happier.'"</ref>
From 1941 to 1978, he gave many thousand lectures on [[poetry]], history, [[economics]]—a wide variety of the [[arts]] and [[sciences]]. And he gave thousands of individual Aesthetic Realism lessons to men, women, and children. In these lessons the way of seeing the world based on aesthetics—which is Aesthetic Realism—was taught.

In 1951, William Carlos Williams read Siegel's "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana" again, and wrote to Martha Baird: "Everything we most are compelled to do is in that one poem." Siegel, he wrote, "belongs in the very first rank of our living artists".<ref>William Carlos Williams, ''Something to Say'', ed J. E. B. Breslin pages 249, 251 (New Directions, 1985): [http://www.aestheticrealism.net/poetry/WilliamsLetter1951.htm "I can't tell you how important Siegel's work is in the light of my present understanding of the modern poem. He belongs in the very first rank of our living artists....Everything we most are compelled to do is in that one poem."]</ref> The prize poem became the title poem of Siegel's first volume, ''Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana: Poems'', nominated for a National Book Award in 1958.<ref>URL: {{cite web |url=http://www.nationalbook.org/nba_winners_finalist_50_07.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=November 13, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100620052756/http://www.nationalbook.org/nba_winners_finalist_50_07.pdf |archive-date=June 20, 2010 }}</ref>  A decade later, his second volume, ''Hail, American Development'', also met with critical acclaim. "I think it's about time Eli Siegel was moved up into the ranks of our acknowledged Leading Poets", wrote Kenneth Rexroth in the ''New York Times.''<ref>[http://www.aestheticrealism.net/poetry/Review-Rexroth-NYT.htm Kenneth Rexroth reviewing ''Hail, American Development''], (March 23, 1969)</ref> Walter Leuba described Siegel's poems as "alive in a burning honesty and directness" and yet, having "exquisite emotional tact". He pointed to these lines from "Dear Birds, Tell This to Mothers":<ref>Walter Leuba in ''New Mexico Quarterly'', Vol. XXVII, No. 3, Autumn, 1957 (University of New Mexico): [http://www.aestheticrealism.net/reviews/HA-NMQ-Walter-Leuba.htm "&#91;H&#93;e never once betrayed a false attitude. Alive in a burning honesty and directness, he had none to betray....He is at every step the poet and his directness and mastery of technical devices allow him frequent perfections. He is not mannered and he does not write for effect. Everything he writes is emotionally honest and therefore of interest...&#91;T&#93;he number of consummate poems and passages is extraordinary. Everywhere there is an exquisite emotional tact: "Find the lost lines in/The writing that is your child, mothers. . . ."]</ref>

{{poemquote|Find the lost lines in
The writing that is your child, mothers ...}}

At the age of 76 Siegel had an operation for a benign [[prostate|prostatic]] condition. He called it "the operation so disastrous to me".  As a result, he lost the use of his feet and was unable to sleep. According to Ellen Reiss, Aesthetic Realism Chairman of Education, the operation was "the cause of his dying 5-1/2 months later".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Shapiro |first=Alan |date=2004-11-03 |title=Always: Love of Reality |url=https://aestheticrealism.net/tro/always-love-of-reality/ |access-date=2023-03-31 |website=Aesthetic Realism Online Library |language=en-US}}</ref>