The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1916-04-09

Newark In Search Of Q Poet.
Settled In 1888. Newark. N. j.. IL
this year celebrating It's two hundred
md fiftieth birthday. The anniver-
sary programme arranged for the
coming summer Is remarkably diver
sifed, with music, pageant exhibit.
lions. parades and athletic sports.
But the big thing Is the prize poetry
competition, which closes tomorrow.
and which is alleged by old
friend JOHN CorToN DANA In his I'D.
mirable weekly newspaper the Ne,c-
drker 10 have ELECTED from the poets
Of the entire country" daily contribu.
tions of ''verse Of exceptional merit"
that promise to pack the memorial
volume with music for future genera
lions Of the descendants Of RoBERr
TREAT. We shall await with the pa
thence Of n child counting the days
to Christmas the advent OF this pub
LEGATION.
What may not such a competition
bring forth! What will the singers
Of a city say? The metropolis or the
further fringe Of the Meadows Is pre-
sumably no more and no less rich in
the raw material of song than other
American cities. II Pegasus wan
dered loose In Its streets. he would
be promptly put In pound. When
HOMER smites his blOOmin' Tyre. what
note may We expect to issue forth?
Newark has history; u long history.
more or less evcntful hut not appeal
ingly romantic. Newark has innu-
merable Industrial establishments en-
gagged in every sort Of manufacture.
Modern versifiers profess to find
beauty, Of the Inner" sort. in smoke
stacks and machinery.
Newark has wide avenues and open
spaces. and she has narrow. dirty
streets. She has old churches, tow
ering Office buildings for her cliff
jewellers, turreted structures that
more Or less boldly challenge the
skies; and she has homes. "palatial"
some. comfortable many, and OF how
els not Il few. She has her libraries
and museums. her hospitals and court
houses, her city hall. school buildings.
hotels, restaurants, dance halls and
boozing kens of low degree. She has
trolleys and trucks, motor cars and
baby carriages and jugGernaut fit
ncy buses: everything on wheels that
big towns have. She has her police,
letter carriers. street swcepers and
firemen, who serve the public much
rs their co-professionals do In other
large centres of population. She has
her Broad street and her Market
street, and also her Mulberry street {:
and her Iron Bound District. She
has her newspaper offices and depart
ment stores, and they are not unlike
those of her sister cities. And her
population is not n%Oticeably different
from the conglomerations Of human
ity that make the civic indigestion
known as nm American city.
What, then. are the poets 10 celc-
bratc In Newark that Is characteristic
Of her alone? Can they write to order
songs for the city on the Passaic that
will not fit equally we'll Detroit or
Cincinnati or Oshkosh or Denver?
Has she indeed so much distinctive
Equality as these towns own? She does
not, like New York. stand guard at
the country's portals. She does not.
like San Francisco. keep ward over
n Golden Gate. She has not the
%quaintness Of New Orleans, the beans
and brains of Boston, JOHN BOYLE
OREILLY's broad bosomed queen
among cities; the false reputation of
Philadelphia, the pork and Poetry
of Chicago. Sing II song Of cities
what shall Newark be?
Yet something there must be in
Newark that constitutes her individ.
ual self: she is not a mere pattern
stamp. Where Is the man ~ vision
who shall catch and AK for us the
Spirit of Newark? knowing poets
as we do, we expect the successful
competitor to be revealed, when the
secrets Of anonymity are unveiled, a
practitioner Of the art of vers libre
from the rcmotest back country, one
who needs the money" but never saw
the city that has SO cleverly hung her
harp in the wind.