H.H. Lewis

Harold Harwell Lewis (January 13, 1901 – January 24, 1985) was an American poet during the 1930s through the 1970s.

Biography Harold Harwell Lewis, or H.H. Lewis as he became known, was born January 13, 1901, near Cape Girardeau, Missouri. He was one of four children born to Thomas and Catherine Tisdale Lewis.

He received his secondary education at the Southeast Missouri State Normal School—Third District Training School, which is now named Southeast Missouri State University. During the Great Depression, Lewis traveled as a common laborer in the Southwest. Away from his parents for the first time, Lewis was incredibly poor and many of his encounters and experiences traveling would fuel his future career.

He eventually returned to the family farm to pursue a career of freelance writing, including publishing his own magazine, The Outlander. For a brief period in the 1930s Lewis enjoyed a small measure of acclaim. Malcolm Cowley of The New Republic in 1932 called him "the red-starred laureate, the Joe Hill of the Communist Movement." An editor of Partisan Review, in a testy exchange with Lewis, called him "a necrophilic son of a cretin." He was heralded as a rising star of proletarian literature by V. F. Calverton and editors of the Soviet publication, International Literature, Lewis seemed destined to stir up controversy.