Dunning, Ralph Cheever 1878-1930

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DUNNING, Ralph Cheever 1878-1930

PERSONAL:

Born 1878, in Detroit, MI; immigrated to Paris, France, c. 1905; died of tuberculosis and starvation 1930, in Paris, France.

CAREER:

Poet.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Helen Haire Nevinson Prize, Poetry magazine, 1925.

WRITINGS:

Hyllus: A Drama (poems), John Lane/Bodley Head (London, England), 1910.

Rococo (poems), Black Manikin Press (Paris, France), 1926.

Windfalls (poems; portions originally published as "The Four Winds" in Poetry and transatlantic review, 1924-25), Black Manikin Press (Paris, France), 1929.

Contributor of poems to Exile and This Quarter.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ralph Cheever Dunning, labeled "the living Buddha of Montparnasse" by fellow American expatriate Ford Maddox Ford, was a silent, wraith-like presence in vital, literary Paris in the 1920s. Dunning, a Detroit native, came to Paris around 1905 and dedicated his life to honing a small group of poems using the style, language, and verse forms of the late Victorian era. While contemporary critics derided Dunning's philosophy and mode of expression as hopelessly antiquated, the modern and discerning Ezra Pound joined others in championing Dunning and saw to it that the reluctant poet was published in the most important journals of the day, including Poetry, transatlantic review, and Exile.

Dunning, more interested in writing poetry than in seeing it published, appeared equally unmoved by critics and admirers. He lived in a small apartment on the rue Notre Dame des Champs that was furnished only with a cot, a single chair, a stove and a bookcase. He rarely ate, and when he ventured out he was found in the noisiest cafés on the Left Bank, clutching a glass of warm milk and a book. In contrast to his garrulous companions, he rarely spoke. Some of this behavior has been attributed to Dunning's addiction to opium, which also "may have intensified his obsession with terror and death—an obsession which permeates his writings," JoAnn Balingit noted in the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Dunning's poetry emphasized how life is fleeting, death permanent. "Above all his poetry reflects his own profound death wish," Balingit wrote. At age fifty-two, Dunning fulfilled that wish by quietly disappearing: weakened by tuberculosis, he simply stopped eating altogether.

Left Bank literati heatedly debated Dunning's poetry after he earned the Helen Haire Nevinson Prize from Poetry magazine in 1925 and the Black Manikin Press decided to publish his long poem Rococo as its first book. But Dunning's reputation quickly faded after he died in 1930, a fate that may have been "just what Dunning would have wished for," Balingit wrote.