The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1907-06-30

not blow bugIe blasts to stir mems
blood, but make music from the softer
reeds. we are by no means lacking.
There is Madison Cawein. who has
published about fifteen volumes Of lyric
verse, each book being hailed with
praise from the best critics of America
and England. The historian John Clark
Ridpath called Mr.. Cawein the Omar
khayyam of the Ohio valley" Others
have likened him TO Keats. He was
born and still lives. by the way. in
Louisville. Ky, where the brother of
John Keats lived and died. The Rev
DR. Aked, recently installed as pastor
of the Fifth Avenue Baptist church in
New York, has said that "the reason
why America does not produce better
poetry is that we are drowned in COM
mercialism-" This Louisville man, who
has been producing very passable po-
etry during more than half of his for
ty-three years. is not drowned in COM
mercialiSm- He held clerical position
for few years in his youth. saved
money, invested ii wisely, and when he
had acquired enough means to keep the
wolf outside his front gate he quit his
Job" and has devoted his life wholly
to the pursuit of poetry. William Dean
HOwells, whom Professor Munsterberg
recently pronounced our foremost man
of letters in response to query from
Berlin, thinks very highly Of Madison
Cawein's poetry. Edmund Gosse OF
England praised il warmly
1t is quite unnecessary To speak eX-
tendedly of James Whitcomb Riley.
Mr.. Bryce may find him any time at
his home on LOckerbie street. in In
dianapOlis. He may find Riley's poems
in almost any household in the United
nG nr N nd &
terpreter and chronicler Of the COM
monpIace and the everydayness of hu-
man life Mr.. Riley has no peer. living
or dead, here or abroad. He is fifty
four years old and still poetizing.
There are other living poets whose
names and works are we'll known anc
well beloved by the devotees of poesy
In the east are Edmund Clarence Sted-
man, Richard Watson Glider. Rober.
Underwood Johnson. George Edward
WOOdberry, Miss Edith NJ. Thomas and
other deserving singers. In Boston il
Bliss Carman, by birth a Canadian
but resident twenty years in the United
States and one of the attractive voice:
in our poetic choir. Between the ALE.
shanies and the Sierras the woods are
full of pOetiCal aspirants, some OF
whom may climb to visible heights.
California has a school of poets, chief
ly in and around San Francisco. sew
eral of whom are doing highly credita-
BILE work. George Sterling. for instance.
writes real poetry. Los angeles has
one, John S. McGroarty, whose songs
of the wander road are soulfully sweet.
So there are our poets, Mr.. Bryce.
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or.
more properly, from the Pacific to the
Atlantic. This brings US back to Joa-
quin Miller of whom Ambrose BieTce
has said, Mr.. Miller has. in my judg-
ment, the greatest natural gift Of song
of any American poet except Poe" As
to his brother Oregonian, the unenviouS
Joaquin remarked two years ago while
visiting the exposition at Portland:
Markham is the best one of US all.
Markham is real poet"
Mr.. Bryce and others who suffer a
sinking at the heart when they con-
template our poets and our poetic pros
poets should consider this recent re-
mark of the Sierran seer:
why, American poetry is just in its
dawn AS for me, like Paul Jones
fighting. I've only just begun to write"
ROBERTUS LOVE