Description
Book SynopsisIf poets are liars by profession, Sharmel Iris was truly professional. Poet, plagiarist, imposter, and forger, Iris engaged in a lifelong campaign of self-promotion that linked him to a constellation of leading writers and public figures, among them T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Joyce Kilmer, Ezra Pound, Dame Edith Sitwell, Diego Rivera, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Winston Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, William Wrigley, and Woodrow Wilson. Of poets writing today, there is no greater, states a preface, signed by W. B. Yeats, to one of Iris''s volumes of poetryalthough at the time of publication Yeats had been dead for several years. Examining Iris'' grandiose fantasy, Craig Abbott exposes his forgery, plagiarism, and imposture.
As a child, Iris had emigrated from Italy with his mother, who arrived in Chicago in pursuit of the American dream. Driven by ambition and narcissism, he began publishing poetry in 1905, participated in the Chicago Renaissance, and conti
Trade Review
Once picked up, cannot easily be put down.
* Midwest Book Review *
Jaw-dropping in places, Abbott's book entertains beyond a constant escalation of Iris' audacity and narcissism. There is also much wit.
* Chronicle of Higher Education *
Table of ContentsPreface
1. Youth of Genius, 1889–1913
2. New Poet, 1913–1922
3. Apparitional Schemer, 1923–1939
4. Nonpublishing Poet, 1940–1949
5. Resurrected Genius, 1950–1953
6. International Poet in Residence, 1954–1959
7. Autobiographer, 1950s and 1960s
8. Local Celebrity, 1960–1967
Notes
Index
