Kenneth Fearing

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Kenneth Flexner Fearing (1902 - 1961) was an American poet and writer. He was considered one of the most prominent poets of the Great Depression.

Fearing was born in Oak Park, Illinois. His parents divorced when he was a year old, and he was raised mainly by his aunt. After studying at the University of Wisconsin, Fearing moved to New York City where he began a career as a poet and was active in leftist politics. In the Twenties and Thirties, he published regularly in The New Yorker and Poetry and helped found The Partisan Review, while also working as an editor, journalist, and speechwriter and turning out a good deal of pulp fiction.

A selection of Fearing's poems has been published as part of the Library of America's American Poets Project. His complete works, edited by Robert M. Ryley, were published by the National Poetry Foundation in 1994.

He published several collections of poetry including Angel Arms (1929), Dead Reckoning (1938), Afternoon of a Pawnbroker and other poems (1943), Stranger at Coney Island and other poems (1948), and seven novels including The Big Clock (1946). He is the father of poet Bruce Fearing.