New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-02-17
The Charlie Chaplins of
Poetry
A Few of the Freest of the Free Are Called to-
Account for Their Folly, but Are Released Because
They Are So Amusing
By Clement Wood
From "The Itdependent"


On the sole Of an elephantlne foot.
prefer skipping lightly across egg shells
In padded Chinese slippers with blue en-
broidered tops.
THEN Adolf Wolff, who has been
Il dubbed admiringly ''The Red Messiah
of the Revolution" contributes series of
very rank "Prson Weeds
I break stones
in the stone shed
big ones
into little ones
big ones
into little ones
big ones
into little ones
big ones
into little ones
| break stones
in the stone shed
Another botanical specimen
bought twenty-five onions
from a niger
twenty-five onions
for ten cents
every night
before the lights 60 out
we each eat onion
weeping
each eat an onion.
And after the lights go out? The rest is
silence. There is latent pacifst note in
this warbler's wabblings:
Trum
tum tum
Trum
tum tum
soldiers, soldiers marching by
Trum
tum tuln
Trum
tum tum
soldiers, soldiers going to die.
Then repetition of the first nine lines.
, This poet is master of patterned verse
homemade patterns. An endless number
of variations suggest themselves. And
when we are reminded that poet nova
days is paid by the line, the free rhythmed
cat is out of the cubist bag. If Mr.. Milton
had belonged to this group Paradise Lost"
might have opened
Adam
Eve Eve
Adam
Eve Eve
OF mans first disobedience, and the fruit
Apple
bite bite
Apple
bite bite
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
and so it would have wolffed on.
7 T is apparently more difficult to write the
oy-Moore-Arensberg variety, which
can be produced by what might be called
the Potluck, as opposed to the Thump
Thump wolffian method. But this, too, can
be grasped by the beginner in few les
sons. Why not correspondence course in
the popular art? To illustrate, poet has
offered first sample of ungyved verse,
Things" clearly entitled to glitter in this
galaxy:
lot Of Mexico
Is not the moon
| think the missing dawn
Has these unexpected kaisers -
Often.
Else, after you know each link
Of such gone treasures there
AS roses,
The map of asparagus
And something,
would think myself will be
The cosmos.
Isn't that masterpiece! The recipe? Sim
plicity itself. We are told first to write
some nice, intelligent verse, bringing in, if
possible, variety of subjects. Then,
grasping the shears firmly in the right
hand, snip-snip the words apart shake to-
gether in derby, jardiniere, or sisters
knitting bag, draw out one by one, write
in irregular lines, and the verse is freed!
The first word always makes an apt title.
If by accident the stanza is still intelligi-
BILE, repeat the process, or reverse every
two words Here is the verse from which
the foregoing was misunderstanding, of
course, the untamed urge of the unfettered
form:
| otter think the cosmos has
lot of things you would not know
| Such unexpected treasures as
Roses, the map of Mexico,
Kaisers, asparagus, the dawn,
Myself the moon, the missing link,
And after each of these is gone
There will be something else. 7 think
AS moulder Of intriguing rhythms.
somewhat after the "Prison Weed" for
mula, Kreymborg himself takes high rank,
His "Berceuse Ariettes" are all quotable
One of these little cradle songs begins:
We have a one-room home.
You have a two-room, three ROOM four-room
We have a one-room home
Because q one-room house is all we have
He, however, is still bound by BOURGEOIS