Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1915-07-15

poetry. 1t is now possible to sell books of
poetry in this country. More volumes of ex-
cellent home grown verse were published
last year than ever before. American poetry
Is attracting attention abroad. After each
yearly review now Mr. Braithwaite receives
letters of commentator from the literary
curious in France and in Germany, as we'll
as from all over the United States. He has,
to drop very suddenly from the poetic, put
American poetry ION the map"
Making the Commuter Think
In the last two years Mr.. Braithwaite has
published in a small volume the score or
more poems of the magazine year which
seem to him the best. Into the second of
these volumes the man who is wont to con-
slider poetry either above or beneath him
may dip his nose without blush and with
out contempt In 1t, on page 1877, he will
find poem made out OF one of the most
typical of American things, one of those ex-
periences which the average American would
take to be the farthest and most safely re-
moved from poetry. This is Joyce F<ilner's
truly lovely and moving poem called "The
Twelve Forty-fve." It's about nothing but
a little midnight suburban train and the
commuters riding home upon 1t. But no
man who has ever fdgeted or snoozed
through the usually trying experience Of
riding home on a slow and belated night
"rattler" and thought 1t the most hateful ex-
perience in the world can take that ride in
the same fretful spirit after reading Kilmers
poem. He Will find that scribbIing poet has
changed his life for little the better Some
thlns that was beautiful right in his own
me- hitherto lurking unseen, will have been
shown to him by that little poet so that he
can forever after see It for himself. And
1t will come over him that that's what
poets are for, and that they are really worth
reading.
Sonnets Equal to Keats
DO you know that in this little yot,r,o -
Braithwaite's you will find poem nv I1dv,I,
Davies Schoonmaker on New York; that ts
not altogether out Of all comparison with
one OF Whitman's best things-"Crossjp,
brooklyn Ferry? Do you know that a
year ago other trustworthy critics apreed
win MI Braithwaite in the discovery that
TWO American poets had written the hest
TWO sonnets done since John Keats Arst
looked into Chapmans Homer and mada or,
OF mis- experience one Of the few great son
nets ever written?
True!
And why shouldn't it be truel
why shouldn't American nerves ana bro,,,
jingle In manner to make Kipling. .Jobn
Maseheld and William Watson in EngIana
heritors OF all the traditions of the most
,se wonderful literature in history look TO their
iauFeisF Here is land with every variet,,
u seosraphical beauty that has ever a.
spired poets before. Even the business sida
ol the iire we live teens with the romance
at least OF the gigantic ana the daring O.
Ialsons and Bells have delved the fartbss,
'aa INTO natures mysteries. Any one who thinks
we are cold people, unfriendly to eno,t"-'
and ashamed Of it, has forgotten the waIoe lo,,oh
20 Dewey and the death OF Mckinley, rhe g,,'e
ssa ssal reason we have had so little poetry ba
Iore is that the stuff for poetry IN onr ne pe-
,'.,, ,ion 70 the point Of embarrassment Hav,ns
inassa - :, nueh nue. poetry It win be wonderful
,haeea II we do not breed the poets 10 rsl sasu
It all and. finally, the readers 70 ~. ~ 'seoId
an audience. e'Fe them
iha' Is precisely what is happsrin.