H. M. and A. C. H., more conscious of the stern fighting and risk which have been involved in getting a reception for the new poetry as against the mossbacks and academes, still rush jealously and angrily to the defense of their contributors, at the sign of any fancied slight. It is true that POETRY has not neglected criticism; indeed, it has been quite as much a journal of criticism as a vehicle of publicity. But by criticism we mean discussion of a larger scope. You can discuss poetry and a poetry movement solely as poetry as a fine art, shut up in its own world, subject to its own rules and values; or you can examine it in relation to the larger movement of ideas and social movements and the peculiar intellectual and spiritual color of the time. To treat poetry entirely in terms of itself is the surest way to drive it into futility and empty verbalism. In the last issue of POETRY Mr. Kreymborg suggests that this is exactly what is likely to happen to the new poetry. It will go to seed unless it is understood as an expression of life, pregnant with possibilities. This is the kind of criticism we were asking for. And Miss Lowell's book seems to us important, not because it gave a little more superfluous advertising to these much-discussed poets, but because it did attempt to place them with reference to the American intellectual soil, and to the changing American attitudes towards beauty and the joy of life. Moreover, she completely abandoned the indiscriminate note of propaganda (which A. C. H. still apparently thinks it is necessary to use even with reference to such uneven poets as Vachel Lindsay), and handles her six poets unsparingly, separating the false in their work from the true, and placing them in relation to a larger intellectual and artistic whole. This is what we meant by criticism. Are we to understand that the editors of POETRY resent such an attitude? That they are going to insist on keeping poetry as a rosegarden in which are to be shown the new varieties for mere observation and esoteric enjoyment? Already there is evidence of a kind of developing orthodoxy of the new, that is hurt at this ceaseless sifting of the new poets' work, and the effort to awaken them to a sense of the imaginative possibilities implicit in their verse. There is no way, for instance, of knowing yet where Mr. Lindsay will come out. He still lacks self-knowledge and self-criticism. Side by side with the thrilling Congo and General Booth there are pages of imitativeness and banality. At times he is a mere verbal experimenter, at others he strikes the pure golden ring. Who, in the little circle of poetry missionaries, points out to him the dangers of mere verbality, and the imperative need of growth? If criticism confines itself to a purely aesthetic standard, then this verse is certainly doomed. The new poetry is sure enough of its ground; from Cibola, Arizona, to Lewiston, Maine, there is evidence that all who have the capacity of appreciation are acquainted with this literary renaissance. But this public, enthusiastic and hospitable, seems to be still moving hazily in a mist of values and interpretations. For it still gets aesthetic instead of social criticism. And many of the writers disturb us by somehow perversely refusing to broaden their imaginative and intellectual horizons. So much of this new fresh spirit is intellectual rather than poetical that it is time it left the easy medium of free verse for the novel and the story and the essay, such as the Lawrences and Cannans and Beresfords give us in England, to our delight. What are we to think of a modern country of a hundred million people, whose younger literary generation turns out, from one year to another, not a single novel that can be called, without reservation, artistic or true, or that can rank with the imported work of our younger contemporaries? Is not that something to be "pessimistic" about, and to make one feel that here is a task for criticism to do some explaining? Hospitality is no longer enough. This army of talent needs the demand, the spur, the suggestiveness of criticism, of a criticism that aims at carrying the fresh and creative expression of the present towards a greater wisdom and clarity and ardor of life. Randolph Bourne Note by the Editor: This interesting contribution to the discussion of aesthetic and social criticism in general, and certan special values in particular, is too suggestive for a tail-piece acknowledgment, and will be considered in our next issue. A CORRECTION Dear Editor: A. C. H., in the July POETRY, wrote that "Edgar Lee Masters and Robert Frost received in it (POETRY) their first appreciation." If this means appreciation of my poetry, I beg to say that my poetry received appreciation in England, and to an extent in America, before POETRY was founded. If this means appreciation of Spoon River, that production was copied, parodied, and commented upon by the press during the summer of 1914. It was quoted in Current Opinion for September, 1914; while POETRY's first notice and quotation of Spoon River appeared in its October number, 1914. Since you cannot justly do me the honor to claim a first appreciation of any of my poetry, I submit this correction to be printed, in view also of the fact that A. C. H. has frequently printed the same or similiar claims touching my work. Edgar Lee Masters Note by the Editor: A. C. H, wrote loosely-she should have specified Spoon River. But POETRY's editors have been unaware of the fact that, in calling attention to that poem, Current Opinion was a month ahead of them. That paper's comments on, and quotations from, the work of living poets have reflected the taste and enthusiasm of its editor, Mr. Edward J. Wheeler, who is, as we all know, president of the Poetry Society of America-a taste possibly too catholic, but as a rule singularly enlightened and progressive. This department of Current Opinion was indeed one of the first gleams on the horizon after a long period of apathetic darkness; perhaps the first authoritative hint offered to the American people that their poets were doing anything worthy of attention and encouragement. And the paper continues its good work without loss of enthusiasm. BACK TO THE MACHINE-SHOP Dear POETRY: Some gigantic figure has flung innumerable brick-shaped factories on the outskirts of Jersey City, Newark and Elizabeth, and along the Hackensack river. They are like big black bugs, and crawl into the green fields. Arrogant and determined, they look down on the modest little farm-houses. I work in one of these four walls alongside of Larsens, Carlsens and Augustsens, all patriotic Americans from Stockholm and the fjords. All around us are little farms; and it is not an unusual sight to see a factory, usually a machine-shop, grow up over-night between rows of corn, or a tall chimney near an acre of beans. And a lot of goats promenade under our windows with big hanging udders. I am glad I have got back to the machine-shop. Here is where the pulse of our times beats strongest and clearest.. This is the place that furnishes an answer to all our questions. All we have, all we create, all we plan, must hereafter have its beginning here. These queer and noisy places feed us and clothe us and house us, and compel us to think along certain tracks. The next father of Christ can't be a carpenter he must come out of the machine-shop. So I would say to all ambitious fathers: "Get into a machine-shop or you are out of the running." This reminds me of what I wanted to say to the boys from the U. of C. They are lucky to study at a university, |
