Visionary American poet Hart Crane wrote verse that combined the passionate sensibility of Walt Whitman with the restraint of traditional European and poetic forms. His most famous work, The Bridge, sought nothing less than to merge America's past and present, history and mythology, and industry and geography into one ecstatic, book-length epic. Langdon Hammer, professor at Yale University, draws on his recent book, Hart Crane: Complete Poems and Selected Letters, to highlight the aspects of Crane's life and work that have served as inspiration for artist Jasper Johns. A booksigning follows the lecture.

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This lecture is made possible by the Terra Foundation for American Art as part of American Art American City, a Chicago celebration of historical American art.

This event is cosponsored with the Poetry Foundation.

Jasper Johns. Two Maps I, 1965-66. Restricted gift of the Albert Kundstadter Family Foundation.