The poetry of Hart Crane appeared on many of the Beats' reading shelves, including Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, and William Evans. His work was a poetic bridge between the nineteenth century and the twentieth, taking inspiration from Whitman and Emerson, and exerting great influence on the Beats, who thought of him as a modern Walt Whitman. He attempted, like Whitman, to capture the entire American experience in one book of poetry, and The Bridge is often thought of as a twentieth century 'Song of Myself.' Indeed one of the poems in The Bridge, 'Cape Hatteras,' is written to Whitman and concludes, "My hand in yours, Walt Whitman—so—." Crane, who suffered from alcoholism and depression, committed suicide in 1932 by jumping from a ship in the Gulf of Mexico.