Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-10-23
THE GOWNSMAN
Free Verse once More


great pains to distinguish the hair OF free
verse--if our free verse is growing hair
twiXt the north and northwest side. lie
tells of 'thc bcwidcrmcnt OF the pubic
which to all appearances is as worried ana
anxious over the momcntous question, Nhat
| is the difference between free verse ana
| proscE' as it is troubled with the hlgh cost
! of living and the pcrsistcncy OF the United
! States Senate in protrGcting to the utmost
| limit our unconcludcd world war. The
Gownsman has not noticed many faces
among his acquaintance haggnrd ana pal
| lid because Of rest lost over this puzHIing
matter. But then the Gownsman has not
been very lately in Boston, not indeed SINCE
| the famous night in which the Boston ponce
! turned over the city to the hooGIums, an act
| which. from its freedom from anything Ike
erhymc or reason. may not imposSibN nave
| been supcrinduccd by Il species OF poeuc"l
| infection from the famous practtIohors ot
| free verse in Cambridge and vicinity
| COME time ago, when the short story
~ was scintil!ating in the spotlight of popu-
lar discussion, an eminent authority dis
| covered that n short story is not Story
which is short, but a new species or genre
| (bcautful and favorite word) in literature
only properly to he designated by the
| hyphcnatcd word ''shcrt story. or, sun
more accurately and precisely the snort
story" Perhaps Mr.. Eaton's discovery IS
one of this delicate, discriminating KIND.
| Standing in a crowd the other day. Mr..
| Eaton heard a man declare, he tells MS ne
saws he wouldn't take his old job back ior
twice his former wages" Lest we be mslcd.
| Mr.. Eaton hastcns to inform MS that 1T
would be absurd to suppose that TINS man
was talking anything but conversational
prose" This we are really glad to Know
And our Mentor adds, "lle was not even
emotionaly the least excited" We are glad
of that, too, for if the man had been emo
tionally excited, who could question that IL
was that which had driven him to verse;
as many a man now, alas of yorc hath gone
his fatal way to drink.
| TT WOULD seem that nothing, then, Is
L more fGllacious than the lurking suspicion
| which YOU cherish. dear lettcrcd reader, that
in some wise rhythmic prose and free, or
| less than vigorously Rhythmic, verse can he
anything whatever alike. Mr.. Eaton-who
ronfcSscs modestly chat he too, has mace
efforts in "the new poetry declares
| that in this free act of free will, the writer
| is always "inwardly conscious that he is
not writing prose- OF course he is. Who
ever wrote an epic who was not "inwardly
conscious of rivaling Paradise Lost? And
|
not outsngng Shelley? Mr.. Eaton sets
great store on the setting of words 'in linear
| fashion, showing how yOu cannot make
| patcr "A poet by printing his rhythmic prose-
a line to each successive comma, and how a
| very nice passage of feeling from Sandburg
Grass" cannot be destroyed, as to its
poetic spirit. by setting it up as prose. We
may write q. +. ID. to this all. But what
| o: it?
| A LII 'ncw poctries there have been
n twenty "ncw poetries' at least since
SpcnsCr-arc rcferable to two things an
| impaticncc with restraint and craving for
| novelty, singularty, difference. To play the
| game with all its rules and triumph in it
| takes genius To quarrel with the rules and
! tampcr with them is easy and sore temp
| tatou If you cannot undergo the rigors of
| long and assiduous practice that you may
! play Bach and Chopin, you can at least play
ragtmc and keeping up with the taste of
| the moment jazz music. And this has the
further advantage of being novel and there
fore popularity acceptable We are not con-
ccrncd with musical or poctical values.
| Chopin has been vilely played; and there is
| excellent ragtme and ja2zcry. But we need
| not dismiss contemptuously 1.-THE minor
poetry of Francis Thompson, as Mr.. Eaton
does parenthctically, because we have be
come votaries of lawless novelty.
IIT AwLEsS novelty" These are dour
II words Mr.. Gownsman But all our
departures from what is accepted and settled,
in government, in art, in conduct, in re-
| lgon itself. are, in their beginnings Claw
| less novelties Some rebplions succeed
some fail and ought to fail. Thin partitions
divide the rebel and the patriot and there
are revolutions which substitute higher,
finer form of government for what has gone
before as there are revolutions which appear
to return us to primcval chaos Free speech.
free thought, free love. free verse free
lunch there are some good and some bad
things in this free list And who is 70
tell if Miss Amy Lowell and Mr.. Masters
arc really going to discrcdit wholly the old
worthless who struttcd their day upon the
stage in the laces and brocades the farthin
gales and stomachcrs, of verse musical and
regular?
MIR. EATON is right, There is a differ
'1 ence, an eternal difference, between
not verse and prose that is trine off
FORM and unimportant as the nuastion
whether an oak leaf or maple is the pref
tier-but between the spirit of poetrv and
that Of prose. Prose, though YOU measure If
out with the regularity of paling fence ond
put the rhythm of n dance hall into il will
remain prose- thing of various motion
swift or slow, upon the ground ThouOb
you shake from it all the iewclrv of r..
ornaments and make its movement ne ir-
regular and unexpected as the wash of the
sea, poetry has yet, like the sea. n prand
basic thrOb, pulsing from the hoort its
spirit, not its form. The real difference
after all, is that poetry gets you off ths
ground; prose keeps you on it. Who soarS
over the tombstoncs of Spoon River? q,
rises off the ground with the iingles, regular
or irregular OF our little writer's of free
verse or verse IN shacklcS? What we want,
verse even. Here's to free poetry with tbo