Emanuel Carnevali

Emanuel Carnevali was born in Florence, Italy, and immigrated to the U.S. just before World War I. He held a series of menial jobs in New York City before joining literary circles whose ranks included William Carlos Williams, Kay Boyle, Lola Ridge, and Robert McAlmon. Though Carnevali rose to prominence partly by disparaging older, established poets such as Williams and Ezra Pound, Williams praised Carnevali for being “wide, Wide, WIDE open. He is out of doors. He does not look through a window.”
 
In his poetry and prose, Carnevali prized immediacy of expression and vivid depictions of suffering. In 1919, Harriet Monroe invited Carnevali to become associate editor of Poetry, a position he held for six months. While in Chicago, Carnevali became seriously ill with encephalitis lethargica, a disease that caused him to shake uncontrollably. He was hospitalized and eventually returned to Italy, where he kept up correspondences with Williams and Boyle until his death in 1942.
 
Carnevali’s collections frequently include selections from his poetry, prose, and criticism. A Hurried Man (1925) was the only volume published during his lifetime; posthumous collections include The Autobiography of Emanuel Carnevali (1967), which was compiled and introduced by Kay Boyle, Fireflies (1970), and Furnished Rooms (2006).