October 19, 1906 [Kokomo, Indiana] – November 9, 1989 [Santa Rosa, California]
Gordon was born in Indiana. By the mid-30s, he was living in Los Angeles with his wife, Anna. Gordon made his name in the 1930s as a passionate and outspoken political poet. He was called before the Un-American Activities Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives in September, 1951. Due to his openly communist views and his reluctance to give the committee names of fellow radical writers, Gordon was blacklisted from employment in the film industry. His poems appeared in The American Scholar, Saturday Review, Harper’s, New Republic, California Quarterly, Poetry and other magazines. He was closely aligned with the Communist movement in Los Angeles. Thomas McGrath wrote a short article, “Poet of the Fifties,” about his work in 1957. Gordon’s Collected Poems appeared from University of Illinois Press in 2004.
