John Brooks Wheelwright

Who was John Brooks Wheelwright?

John Brooks Wheelwright was an American poet from a Boston Brahmin background. He belonged to the poetic avant garde of the 1930s and was a Marxist, a founder-member of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party in the United States. He was bisexual. He died after being struck by an automobile at the intersection of Beacon St. and Massachusetts Avenue in the early morning hours of September 13, 1940.

Wheelwright was descended from the 17th-century clergyman John Wheelwright on his father's side and the 18th-century Massachusetts governor John Brooks on his mother's side. He studied at Harvard University and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology before practising as an architect in Boston. He was editor of the magazine Poetry for a Dime.